MICHAEL GRUENBAUM was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1930. His father was active in Prague’s Jewish community; he and Michael’s grandfather held prestigious seats in the famous Altneuschul synagogue. After the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, Michael’s father was arrested, tortured, and sent to the Small Fortress in Terezin, where he was killed within two weeks. Michael was sent to Terezin in 1942 with his mother and sister and remained there until the war ended two and a half years later. The family returned to Prague, having lost their relatives, friends, and possessions; they left in April 1948 and spent two years in Cuba before being allowed to enter the United States. In Cuba, Michael, who did not speak English or Spanish, attended an American high school, graduating in two years, in time to enter MIT.
Michael received his BSCE from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in three years; he was drafted during the Korean War and spent two years in the army. He worked for the Illinois Highway Department in Chicago and met his wife, Thelma, to whom he was married for fifty years. He earned his master’s in city planning at Yale University and worked for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, publishing a book entitled Transportation Facts for the Boston Region. He later served as special assistant to the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, worked for a large consulting firm, and eventually helped form a private engineering company where he became a partner. In retirement, Thelma wrote a book about Michael and his friends’ experiences called Nešarim: Child Survivors of Terezín, which was published in the United Kingdom and is now in its second edition. Unfortunately, Thelma contracted ALS and lost her valiant fight three years later.
Thelma and Michael have three sons, David, Peter, and Leon. Michael still lives in the same house in Brookline, Massachusetts, that he and Thelma moved to more than forty-five years ago. Recently, Michael established a fund at the MIT music library in memory of his parents.
TODD HASAK-LOWY is the author of four books of fiction, including the middle-grade novel 33 Minutes, also published by Aladdin. Todd holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and was an assistant and later associate professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at the University of Florida from 2002–2010. In 2010 he left his academic position and relocated to Evanston, Illinois, with his wife and two daughters, in order to focus on his creative writing. In addition to writing books, Todd translates Hebrew fiction into English and teaches courses in both Creative Writing and Literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.