Author’s Note

 

The historical events in Efir Is Alive are factual. The real Midlers were my relatives from the village of Volchin in what is today the Eastern European country of Belarus. In June of 1942, the real Esfir Manevich was shoved into a cattle car and transported from her native city of Kobrin to a forest area between Brest and Minsk called Brona Gora. There, during the summer and fall of 1942, the Nazis systematically murdered 50,000 Jews, including an estimated 36,000 from the city of Brest.

Of the Jews who filled eight mass graves, Esfir was the only known survivor to give recorded testimony (three paragraphs) to the Soviets in 1944. At the time, she was twelve years old. She then disappeared from written history, at least from my numerous efforts. As I have learned repeatedly in my search for the truth, more information about Esfir may still be out “there.”

There have been a few recent uncorroborated reports. A man supposedly survived the Brona Gora massacre. He was shot and killed later in Bereza when he tried to escape. Also, two people from Bereza and one woman from Antopol purportedly escaped the killing fields.

In my version of her life, Esfir writes her remarkable story ten years after the massacre. Many of the characters’ names and experiences are a combination of real and imagined. Others are true to life—to those who believe.