Breaking a survivor’s silence

Joe Reich, celebrated ophthalmologist and chair of Melbourne Jewish Book Week, recently launched his latest book We Should Have Talked at a private event in Melbourne.

The work, a biography of his late father, Holocaust survivor Jacob Reich, explores the journey of uncovering his father’s story of survival through testimonies only discovered after Jacob’s passing. Like many Holocaust survivors, Jacob Reich never told his children about his wartime experiences, preferring to focus on the future after immigrating to Australia from Poland in 1948.

Among those in attendance was 101-year-old Holocaust survivor Helen Schon. Schon is an active member of the Melbourne Jewish community with her testimony most notably appearing in the 2023 Australian documentary Remember Belsen.

“Someone who was in the Łódź Ghetto with both my parents, who was liberated from Bergen-Belsen with my mother in May 1945 was Helen Schon,” Reich said. “After the war, she got to know my parents well. Helen’s a very generous and active woman who still makes me a poppy seed cake every year.”

The launch was hosted by Reich’s son, Joshua Reich, who had also never been privy to the full extent of his grandfather’s experiences during the war. Joshua praised his father for bringing “humanity, emotional salience and a sick and twisted sort of beauty” to his grandfather’s story, making it a compelling read.