Australia: Author of "The Lost" to speak

Daniel Mendelsohn, author of the award-winning book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, will be speaking in Australia during the Sydney Writers' Festival and at the Jewish Holocaust and Research Centre in Melbourne.

At the festival, he'll participate in a panel discussion about "Remembering the Holocaust" on June 1, "Daniel Mendelsohn in Conversation" on June 2 and "The Art of the Essay" on June 3.

For festival information, click here.

In this article from The Australian Jewish News, Mendelsohn provides insights into his 2003 visit to Australia to meet individuals connected to his family.

The journey to his book began in 2001 and spanned 12 countries on four continents as he investigated what happened to his family from Bolechow.Poland (now Bolekhiv, Ukraine).

In March 2003, Mendelsohn visited Sydney to speak to a handful of survivors who knew his family.

“Australia was the only place in which there was a group of survivors from my family’s town. They [the Bolechow survivors] were scattered everywhere else, not in a cluster. So there was a nice feeling of group camaraderie.”

One of the survivors Mendelsohn encountered in Sydney is Central Synagogue member Jack Greene. Greene dated Shmiel’s daughter Ruchele in Bolechow.

Greene, 81, immigrated to Australia in 1951, and is one of the few remaining Bolechow survivors in Australia. Since Mendelsohn's 2003 visit, Boris Goldsmith, Salamon Grossbard and Bob Grunschlag have passed away.
Read the complete story here