Eli’s Promise is a work of historical fiction. I have endeavored to accurately portray the historical settings in which the plot unfolds and the characters appear, however, the plot and the principal characters portrayed are products of my imagination and do not refer to any actual person, living or dead. Eli and his family, Mimi and her family, Maximilian Poleski and Congressman Zielinski are all fictional. The story is presented in three locations over three time periods: Lublin, Poland, during the war, Föhrenwald in the mid-1940s and the Albany Park section of Chicago in 1965.
Prior to the Nazi occupation, Lublin was the seat of Jewish learning, the center of Jewish education. The Yeshiva Chachmei, School of the Wise Men, was an immediate target of the Nazis. It was ransacked, the books and literary materials were burned, and the building became the headquarters of the dreaded German Order Police. Lublin’s Jewish citizens were forced to wear armbands, and they were separated and confined within two ghettos. They were systematically transported from the ghettos to labor camps, and ultimately to their deaths. As one of the story’s main characters, Esther Rosen, prophesized, “They will identify us, they will collect and concentrate us and then they will eliminate us.” Ultimately, all but two hundred of Lublin’s forty thousand Jews were murdered.
On the whole, the Nazi officers portrayed in the story were real, though their interactions with the principal characters were imaginary and merely representational. Odilo Globočnik was in fact a Nazi general who was placed in charge of Jewish resettlement and depopulation in the Lublin District. Many scholars believe that it was Globočnik who conceived of the extermination camps and mass murder by poison gas. He was instrumental in construction of the Belzec extermination camp, the first such camp in occupied Poland, and he oversaw the construction and operation of Sobibor, Majdanek and Treblinka. He committed suicide in May 1945 by swallowing a cyanide capsule during Allied interrogation. Hermann Dolp and Horst Riedel were in fact the Nazi officers in charge of the Lipowa Street labor camp, later renamed Lindenstrasse. Ernst Zörner was appointed governor of the Lublin District by Hans Frank, as related in the story.
The portion of the story taking place in the postwar displaced persons camps is fictional, though the settings are authentic. The Föhrenwald and Landsberg Displaced Persons Camps were real and I have endeavored to accurately portray life and events as they occurred, including the tuberculosis epidemic. General Lucius D. Clay was the acting American military governor and chief administrator of occupied Germany, though his involvement with any of the elements of the plot is fictional. Colonel Bivens and Major Donnelly were fictional characters. Similarly, Bernard Schwartz, Adinah Szapiro, Frau Helstein and the other Föhrenwald and Landsberg characters are imaginary. What is not imaginary and is clearly documented in the narrative, is the imposition of restrictive immigration quotas by Allied countries and the reluctance to relax them for Jewish refugees. It was a dark time in our history. As President Truman’s envoy observed, “The civilized world owes it to this handful of survivors to provide them with a home where they can again settle down and begin to live as human beings.” But the immigration quotas were not increased until years later, and not without fierce opposition.
The history of Albany Park and its development is accurate, and the neighborhood is lovely, just as described. In the postwar years, Albany Park became a destination for Jewish and European immigrants. Even today, it is a widely diverse community. That said, Witold Zielinski is an invented character and is not meant to be representational of any elected official in any way. Quite the contrary, Albany Park has been well served by its congressional representatives for many years without scandal.
Eli’s Promise is at its heart a story about corruption and war profiteering. It was my intention to draw a line of commonality from 1939 through 1966 during which profiteering could and did occur. False Juden-Ausweis cards were marketed to desperate Jewish victims in the Polish ghettos during the Nazi occupation. Black market sales of various products were prevalent in the displaced persons camps in postwar Germany. American courts have provided a forum for prosecution of false U.S. immigration documents for years. The years 1965 to 1966 were a period of major expansion of men and materials for the Vietnam War, opening opportunities for unscrupulous war profiteers. Court records evidence numerous prosecutions of corrupt defense contractors and government officials for fraud and bribery in connection with military contracts.
I have received wonderful help and encouragement during the research and writing of this book. I have had access to a wealth of information and material from several institutions, and I am grateful for the assistance of their staffs. The Berlin Jewish Museum, the German Historical Museum, The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Educational Center, and in particular, Yad Vashem, whose archives hold precious personal histories of Lublin’s survivors. Personal memoirs, diaries and video interviews helped to provide a backdrop to the Lublin chapters.
Once again, thanks to my supportive group at St. Martin’s Press: my editor, George Witte; assistant editor, Kevin Reilly; my publicist, Sarah Schoof; and vice-president of marketing, Brant Janeway. I am deeply appreciative of the thorough and insightful copyediting of Angela Gibson. Thanks to my energetic and upbeat literary agent, Mark Gottlieb.
My heartfelt thanks to my cadre of readers and their invaluable advice: Cindy Pogrund, David Pogrund, Linda Waldman, Richard Templer, Richard Reeder and Benjamin Balson. And, as always, my deepest gratitude to my patient and tireless wife, Monica, who reads each and every page as they come out of the printer. She has read and edited the story a thousand times and has always stayed positive and encouraging. I’m a fortunate man.