We spoke to author Geri Spieler about her new novel, based on the true story of her grandmother’s remarkable journey.
Regina of Warsaw: Love, Loss and Liberation follows Regina Anuszewicz – who is based on Geri Spieler’s grandmother – and her journey of survival during horrific pogroms in Poland in the early 20th century. Her journey takes her to Los Angeles, with her three daughters. The girls were put into a Jewish orphanage, where they lived until they were 18, because Regina couldn’t afford to look after them by herself.
The trauma and hardship that Regina experienced shaped her life and ignited her passion to take an active role in fighting antisemitism, in the novel and in real life.
We spoke to author Geri Spieler about the book, which is a deeply personal homage to an immensely resilient woman.
Geri described the beginning of this true story and how the rage of violence shook the town and Regina’s hopes: “My grandma left Warsaw when she was maybe 20 years old with a baby boy. She was by herself and travelled thousands of miles because she witnessed a pogrom in 1906.”
Readers are exposed to Regina’s inner monologue throughout the book: “I wanted to make it even more personal, and by being inside her head that way, to me, it’s like I know this person. There’s a passage where her parents tell her not to talk about all these horrible things she’s reading about, that it’s not appropriate at dinner, and that they’ll talk about it later, but we hear Regina say that later never came. I used this technique as a way of building a case of the denial from her family, about just how bad everything was,” she explained, as Regina spent years trying to convince her family to follow her and escape Poland, but they did not believe the antisemitism was as bad as she claimed.”
“Because she witnessed extreme violence against Jews firsthand, she knew she had to get out of there. She was a gutsy young woman who believed so strongly in what she saw coming.“
Geri spoke about the fascinating journey from Warsaw after her mother gave her son an address and names of people that she’d found in her grandmother’s belongings after she’d passed away. She said: “My son wanted to see if we could find the apartment, despite the address being over 50 years old. I didn’t think we could find anybody that was alive, nobody has. We took it to the hotel concierge and asked if she could find a phone number for the address and the next day, she’d found one! The man on the other end of the phone came to the hotel and pulled out a small photograph that was of my cousin’s wedding.
“So, grandma had been corresponding with these two people who turned out to be her nephews. It’s an amazing story because a lot of people go back to Poland to look for their relatives that have died, but just want to see where they lived,” continued Geri.
Geri believes that this book mirrors today’s society in some ways, and that readers can learn a lesson from and relate to Regina. “There’s a rise of racism across the world, and it’s a cautionary tale that I never thought we would see. It’s time to step back and say ‘hey, what’s happening?’ It’s frightening. Like Regina said, we need to pay attention. That’s the lesson from this book.”
