Phyllis Kimmel Libby

My Jewish grandfather was a seventh-generation goldsmith who

worked for Fabergé in Odessa in the Ukraine. After he and his

fiancé were caught in crossfire during the murderous pogrom of 1905,

they vowed never to raise their children in such peril. He brought his

wife, children and in-laws to America.

My Bavarian grandfather, a pacifist Catholic farmer in the tradition of

beatified Nazi resister and martyr, Franz Jäggerstätter, refused to fight

for Germany in WWI. Germany had suppressed his Czech language,

and his nation’s freedom of self-rule. He stowed away on a Norwegian

sailing ship for two years, before landing in Canada. He walked across

the New York State border and met his Lutheran-Hungarian bride in

Philadelphia.

Holiday dinner conversations in my youth sparkled in English,

Yiddish and high and low German dialects. The old guard’s wild tales

of life before America underscored strong beliefs in peace, personal

responsibility, and the power of love and dignity. They were a cultural

mix religiously, economically, and artistically. They shared exuberant

diversity and intense belief in learning, along with ironic, heartwarming

and sometimes dark, humor.

They rooted dialogue, stories and settings in my heart. Their suffering

taught me to give back for blessings received. They championed my

love for literature, music and fine arts. I sought spiritual understanding

through the Tao, Judaism, Christianity, and Eckankar.

My father, eighth generation jeweler, a platinum smith, was born

in the United States. His experience taught me never to forget the

Holocaust. As a twenty-one-year-old American tourist, then a sculptor,

he and his older brother, a violinist, were in Salzburg, Austria on the eve

of Kristallnacht in November 1938. They heard the glass shatter in the

looting of Jewish businesses and smelled the synagogue burning. That

night my father realized why his parents had fled to the US after the

1905 pogrom in Odessa. The following day in Munich he almost picked

a fight with an SS standing in front of a Munich art museum. My uncle,

born in Russia, grabbed my dad by the scruff of his neck and whispered,

“Moishe, what the hell’s the matter with you? You’ll get us arrested! My

passport is in my Jewish name, Pincus. They’ll know we’re Jews! We don’t

know if we have protection as Americans and we’re not going to find

out—right, boychik?”

Apparently, my dad’s oral history would not be my only enlightenment.

In 1957, in fourth grade, a boy in my class accosted my neighbor

and me on our walk back to school at lunchtime. This classmate called my

neighbor a “dirty Jew,” and me—the cute little blonde pigtailed gamine

with pierced ears who was a carbon copy of her Aryan shiksa mother—I

had a knee-jerk response and slugged that boy hard in his stomach. He

ran home and never returned to my classroom.

Ironically, film footage of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had been

shown on commercial tv prior to this incident, here in Joseph McCarthy/

Ku-Klux-Klan America (in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love).

My mother brought me through an upsetting childhood experience

that ignited my passion for human rights, not unlike my father’s reaction

to being in Nazi Germany.

After this altercation, my mother made sure I understood non-violent

civil disobedience. Wise, tender-hearted and strong-willed, she set high

standards. Crippled with Rheumatoid Arthritis for nineteen years, she

could not stand for long periods of time. She took me to Quaker meetings

of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

My mom taught me respect for all people, and explained Civil Rights

and Afro-American history to me. In 1959, she sent me to stand in her

place, in the municipal courtyard of Philadelphia, with a small group of

resisters in silent, weekly anti-nuclear war/peace vigils sponsored by the

WILPF.

I was twelve years old. To this day, I remember how people passed us

and stared. I looked back and silently gave them love in a piece of my

conscience—hoping my message would resonate in their hearts.

That history haunted me into adulthood. My marriage to the late

Reginald Libby, a WWII Marine veteran, inspired me further to write

the first book of the trilogy, Ingrid’s Wars: The Résistance Between Us over

fifteen years ago.

I worked in Poland and in 2005 visited Auschwitz. It was a devastating

reminder. If my grandfather and grandmother and their family had not

left the Ukraine, they would likely have died in a pit from gunshots to the

back of their necks—Genickschusse, in the Odessa Massacre of 1941.

Yes, I am passionate about human rights. It is my sincere hope that

The Résistance Between Us will resonate in your conscience, your heart and

your soul. May we, in peace, heed the lessons of history—and may we

truly learn to love our neighbors, whoever they are, and wherever they

may be.

Phyllis Kimmel Libby