Regina of Warsaw: Love, Loss and Liberation by Geri Spieler; Naples, Florida: Speaking Volumes, LLC; © 2024; ISBN 9798890-221490; 289 pages; $17.95 on Amazon; publication date June 17, 2024.
SAN DIEGO – This is a fictionalized account of the life of author Geri Spieler’s maternal grandmother, Regina Anuszewicz, compiled from the memories of relatives and leavened with a healthy imagination.
It traces Regina’s life growing up in the Mokotow section of Warsaw in the early 20th century. Regina was very much aware of growing antisemitism in Poland, especially since she had been visiting her sister in Bialystok in 1906 when a pogrom broke out. Hiding in a closet, she heard her sister being gang raped by soldiers, who had killed other Jews but left Chaja Fajga bruised and beaten on the floor of her apartment. Regina, then 16, felt guilty about hiding; she wished she could have helped her sister, but any intervention would have resulted in her being raped too and perhaps even killed.
The trauma remained with her, influencing the rest of her life. Working as a translator of Polish, Yiddish, and Russian at the Bund offices, she was exposed to frequent reports of antisemitic incidents in Poland, heightening her sense of danger. She took comfort in the strength of her boss at the Bund, Leopold. However, he took advantage of her naiveté, manipulating her into unprotected sex. She became pregnant and Leopold was forced by Regina’s father to marry her. But the marriage was loveless and when Regina constantly repeated her desire to leave Poland, he grew angry, demanded and received a divorce.
She took her son Louis with her to Paris, en route to America, and was wooed by another man, who turned out to be just as unscrupulous as Leopold was. However, Morris agreed to accompany her on a ship to America at a time when immigration was relatively unrestricted. They had the ship’s captain marry them.
The historical fiction then examines what life was like for a non-English-speaking wife and mother, dependent on a husband who became increasingly bitter about not being able to find a job as a jeweler and having to settle for a job working in a leather factory.
Author Spieler employs an interesting technique. She narrates what is happening in Regina’s life, and in italics, she inserts what Regina is thinking as the action moves forward. That makes for fast and very interesting reading.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World.