April 16, 2009
Interview with Charles Weinblatt, author of Jacob's Courage
On Tuesday, people around the world will observe Holocaust Remembrance Day or Yom HaShoah. To mark the occasion around these parts, I’d like to present this interview I conducted with author Charles S. Weinblatt.
Mr. Weinblatt’s recent book, “Jacob’s Courage,” tells the story of two young lovers and their families during the Holocaust. He kindly answered my questions via email. Here’s the full exchange:
Jewish Literary Review: There have been a lot of books about the Holocaust already. What’s unique about your book? What message does it have that has not already been discussed?
Chuck Weinblatt: I wanted the reader to experience the complete brutality of the Holocaust through the eyes of young lovers in “Jacob’s Courage.” The tale is epic in content, covering the lives of the Jewish lovers and their families from 1939 through the end of the war in 1945. It’s not a fast read and it is graphic at times. The characters are mostly fictitious, but the events, experiences and dates surrounding them are real. This is no whitewash of human ordeal. The truth of the Holocaust is atrocious. These people went through experiences that we can hardly imagine. Therefore, Jacob’s Courage reveals the most brutal circumstances that a reader is likely to encounter. But, because it’s a love story, the reader also experiences romance, passion and intense emotional attachment.
I centered the story around two Jewish lovers in Salzburg Austria, at the time of the Auschluss, the German invasion and conquest to display the dichotomy of life in the Shoah (Holocaust). We are not always happy or sad, but a combination of both. So it was for our lovers. We experience the bliss of their desire, while life around them disintegrated into a morass of terror. In the Theresienstadt concentration camp, our lovers marry, play in the Jewish orchestra and teach in the camp school before escaping in a tunnel and joining the partisans. Our lovers displayed the courage to fight their brutal persecutors. Here, we also find a collective social bravery by observing that while the adult Jews of Theresienstadt knew that they were about to be murdered, they created an environment of normalcy in the camp for their children. Each of those things happened in reality. It was my desire to place ordinary people in the central roles, performing extraordinary acts of courage. I rarely strayed from the truth. In fact, a Holocaust survivor in Florida called me to ask how I knew exactly what it was like to live in Auschwitz. He said I described Auschwitz with minute detail and he was shocked to learn that I was not there during the Holocaust. We have since become friends.
Unlike a memoir, I was not held accountable for telling one specific story. Fiction enabled me to move my characters into and out of some of the most critical experiences of World War II. I believe this is unique for a Holocaust book. Unlike someone who experienced the Holocaust in one place and time, my characters travel from event to event as the Holocaust unfolds around them.
In stressing reality, my characters are not heroes. They are ordinary in almost every way. Yet, placed into unthinkable experiences, they performed extraordinary feats of bravery. This, I think, is at the center of our morality. Each of us would like to believe that we could perform extraordinary acts of courage, if necessary. We know that many Holocaust victims performed acts of incredible valor. Yet, historical fiction should not always be about heroes claiming improbable victory against overwhelming malevolence. Life is about real people, with character flaws and psychological imperfections. Our experiences are rarely black and white. We live in shades of gray. We are attractive and hideous, comforting and horrifying, vicious and compassionate; we worship and we loathe. We are not clouded by delusions of morality, but governed by them.
I also wanted a story with an uplifting ending, because some Jews fought back and some survived. Two thirds of the Jews of Europe perished, some of them my own relatives. Yet, one third survived. The seed of Israel emerged from the darkness of putrefying death to grow and flourish. Within three years, Israel was reborn. So, this is a story of a massive triumph of good over evil. Our lovers represent the seed of Israel, surviving against all odds.
Finally, as I was doing research for Jacob’s Courage, I learned that almost two entire generations of my maternal extended family perished in the Holocaust. The shock of learning about my lost ancestors gave my writing added impetus. I began to feel that I was telling their story, in an unexpected epiphany of catharsis. It suddenly became increasingly important that people know how concentration camp victims were persecuted. The only way that I could tell that story was in its horrifying detail. Perhaps they were with me as I wrote.
JLR: Tell me about your writing process. Where do you do most of your writing? Do you keep a schedule? Prefer to write in the morning, evening, middle of the night?
Weinblatt: I write just about every afternoon. It’s become a habit, since I retired in 2004. I’m only 56 (I had to retire because of disability), so I believe that I have a second career as a writer. I write in my family room, which is a huge, bright white room. Here, under a two-story ceiling with skylights I can looking out over a densely wooded ravine and discover peace. When I’m close to completing a work, I devote more time and effort to it. The last few weeks of writing Jacob’s Courage was a maddening, chaotic time. Otherwise, I take evenings and mornings off. Thankfully, I write more as a hobby than for income. So, I can be a little lazy at times.
JLR: Where did you get the idea for a romance set during the Holocaust?
Weinblatt: I decided to create a fictitious seventeen-year-old male as my primary character (Jacob Silverman). To reference reality, I used my own experiences from that age. As it happens, I was dating my future wife at that time. The glory and beauty of young love is exceedingly special to me. It represents one of the most exciting and satisfying experiences of a lifetime. Jacob’s lover, Rachael, was created in large part from my wife, as she was at that age. I felt compelled to write a love story because there were young Jewish lovers during the Holocaust and they must certainly have experienced the greatest beauty and the most terrifying brutality at the same time. This is a huge challenge for a writer, because the characters are constantly buffeted by the winds of tremendous and opposing emotions. We experience the pure beauty of lovemaking with them. And, later, we experience the heartbreaking devastation of genocide and the loss of loved ones. It’s a wild ride for the reader and not always for the best.
JLR: What writers do you admire or enjoy reading?
Weinblatt: I’ve always been a fan of Michener, Wouk, Wiesel, Tolstoy, Wilder, From, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. On the less serious side, I enjoy Tolkien, Clancy (what man doesn’t?), King, Auslander, Hosseini and Eggars. One of my hobbies is collecting the compositions of Mozart. So, my library is filled with a great deal of non-fiction about the famous composer. I try to read at one work of fiction and non-fiction at the same time. I think it keeps me fresh. Finally, I enjoy books that sweep the reader along in emotional tales of excitement. To that end, I admire epics like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Here within unforgettable characters, we experience remarkable courage, passion and the thrilling victory of pure good over terrifying evil. I hope that I was able to take the reader of Jacob’s Courage along for such a ride. That the Holocaust happened in reality, exterminating millions of innocent people, makes the story that much more intriguing to me.
JLR: What are your future writing plans? Any follow up for your novel or plans for other types of writing?
Weinblatt: I have a sequel in mind for Jacob’s Courage. However, it’s currently on the shelf as a project. I won’t reveal what will happen to our young lovers in the sequel. Suffice it to say, there will be a huge effort in research, including the necessary acquisition of idioms in a language other than English, within a vastly different culture than Europe. It’s going to be a ton of work. I also believe that a writer improves his or her skill by crossing genres and themes.
Currently, I’m working on a children’s book and a science fiction novel. The children’s book is a great change and refreshing. The science fiction novel is a great deal of fun to write. To be honest, it’s my favorite genre. I even dabble in poetry, on occasion.
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