A Secret Journal
by
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That night I lay in the
quiet, foreboding darkness of my bedroom, contemplating my course of action. I
wanted to open the tattered notebook lying on the night table near my bed
because I was curious. I wanted to understand precisely what my grandfather meant
by, “It’s a journal of your grandpa’s time in Hitler’s concentration camp.”
Conversely, I was terrified at what my curiosity might uncover. Since my
grandfather had not been in the military, the only other explanation was he had
to be Jewish. For me it was logical, everything I’d read or viewed on the
holocaust was about Jews being slaughtered by Hitler. Gypsies were the only
other ethnic group mentioned in historical data of the holocaust, so it was
incomprehensible for me to believe that Black People were among the eleven
million victims of the holocaust.
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About the Book
A Secret Journal,
is a story based on a tattered journal maintained by one black survivor
detailing his tribulations during the pogroms of Nazi Germany. The survivor,
suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, presents the frayed, forty-year-old journal
to his grandson as a college graduation gift. The saga unfolds through the
fading memory of the grandfather recalling the events, and the bewildered
grandson struggling frantically to absorb the wealth of unrecorded historical
facts, and place them in a modern day perspective.
Reading the journal and having his grandfather elaborate is therapy for the ailing grandfather, and a source of belated enlightenment for the grandson as evils of the holocaust becomes personal. But, as the reading comes to an end, so does the illness. And the grandson is left embracing the nagging realization that the nondescript “Others,” so conveniently alluded to in all historical accounts of the holocaust to obscure real identities, had surreptitiously surrendered a face; a black face--his grandfather.
About the Author
S. L. Williams was born in Georgia, and grew up in New
York City. After receiving a BA and MBA from The University of Maryland, he
worked for the Federal Government until retirement. Currently residing in
Germany, he writes full time and his short stories have appeared in numerous
national magazines.