San Diego, Ca (special) -- Suzan Hagstrom had difficulty saying exactly what motivated her, an Episcopalian of Swedish and British ancestry, to become so involved in researching the Holocaust and eventually writing a book called Sara's Children.

Perhaps, it was because of her Alhambra High School history teacher in Martinez, California, Hagstrom speculated during an interview last week at the convention of the Association of Jewish Librarians at the La Jolla Marriott.

About 30 years ago, Joe Kokaisl made her "very aware of World War II and how it wasn't a situation like Hogan's Heroes on television," the author told me. "He put quite a bit of emphasis on the Holocaust and how nearly successful Hitler was not only in winning the war, but in killing the entire Jewish population of Europe. The way he taught that, it left a deep
impression on me. I've always had a deep interest in that topic ever since."

Years after high school, while working as a financial writer for the Orlando Sentinel, Hagstrom had attended some lectures on her own time at Orlando's Holocaust Center. Although the center had been open by that time for four years, no one had done a feature-length story about it for
"Florida," the newspaper's Sunday magazine. So she volunteered to write such a piece.

In the course of researching the story for the Aug. 12, 1990 edition , she met Helen Greenspun, a Survivor who told her of growing up with anti- Semitism in Poland, how life got worse after the German invasions, how the family was put on trains to the camps, their lives in the camps, and
their liberation — a litany that has become agonizingly familiar to the Jewish community as more and more Survivors share their memories.

What made Greenspun's story nearly unique was that she was one of five siblings—four sisters and one brother—who came out of the war alive. It was far more commonplace for Survivors to have lost the majority of their siblings to Hitler's killing machine.

Hagstrom subsequently decided to interview all five siblings—the children of Sara Garfinkel—and became increasingly absorbed by the events of the Holocaust as they affected the Garfinkel family.

"Part of my motivation in telling their saga was to show that some non- Jews view the Shoah as important," Hagstrom reflected in an e-mail to me after the interview. "Years ago, I even thought that if any deniers of the Holocaust were to challenge that event or the Garfinkels' testimony,
they could never do so on the premise I was sympathetic because I was Jewish. I thought my non-Jewishness and lack of personal connection to the Holocaust would add some distance, that is, a layer of objectivity to the Garfinkels' story and perhaps a different perspective."

Two sisters and one brother were sent to work in a camp in Skarzysko- Kamienna, Poland, which manufactured ammunition for the nazi Army.  Two other sisters were sent to a similar installation in Kielce. Near the end of the war, all five were miraculously reunited in a third camp in
Czestochowa. The brother credits his survival with the action by his two
sisters, who worked in the kitchen at Skarzysko-Kamienna to get him
transferred from factory duty to kitchen duty with them. They persuaded
the foreman to request the brother for the kitchen detail.

Why did five Garfinkels survive, while so many other entire families were
annihilated? Extensive interviewing with the family provided no answer
beyond what one might have surmised: sheer luck. The siblings were sent
to work camps rather than to death camps like Auschwitz. They were kept
together. Some had more access to food than other prisoners.

Often when one reads about the Holocaust, one reads of this or that
Survivor's "will to survive," but such was not the case with all the
Garfinkels, Hagstrom said.

"Of the five siblings, some of them talk about how they wanted to die, but
didn't," she said. "So I couldn't pin their survival on how they were
determined to live because of the five only two of them felt that way."
 

The author said if she had one preconception about the Holocaust it was
that Survivors were "saint-like" persons. "There was a tendency to
idealize them and put them on a pedestal, and I don't think they want
that." In fact, she said, some Survivors are good, some bad, just like
everyone else.

Hagstrom was surprised that through the Garfinkels' lenses, some of the
nazi overseers were good. For example, the foreman who allowed the
brother to come to work with the two sisters in the bakery is remembered
by the family as a good person. 

The author said from her own perspective, the foreman didn't merit being
described as "good." Rather, "it was just the absence of cruelty." 

On a personal level, writing the book "made me realize that even though I
am just one person... I managed to actually compose a book and actually
find a publisher and get it into print, and that it takes only one person to
get something done sometimes."

Another effect: When she goes to the store to buy something, "instead of
sleepwalking through that process, I might be more attentive to the
cashier and chat with him a little bit, banter with him a little bit."

Writing Sara's Children ' made me "more aware of people as individuals,"
Hagstrom explained. She said she tries not to have "prejudgments about
what job they are doing, or prejudgments about their ethnicity, or
whatever."

Perhaps we all have a high school teacher in Martinez to thank for that.