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book reviews
SAVED bY ScHINDLER: THE LIFE OF cELINA KARP bINIAZ
William B. Friedricks
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ICE CUBE PRESS, LLC
“Iam a Holocaust survivor, and every survival story is unique. What makes mine unique is that I was fortunate enough to be on ‘Schindler’s List.’”
These are the words of Celina Karp Biniaz, one of youngest to be included on Schindler’s List and among the last of the remaining survivors.
The story of how Oskar Schindler’s list saved over a thousand Jewish prisoners from death at the hands of the Nazi regime was generally unknown until the publication of Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally in 1982.
The list, according to author William B. Friedricks, director of the Iowa History Center at Simpson College, “was actually several lists, and it referred to a compilation of nearly eleven-hundred names of Jewish prisoners designated to work at businessman Oskar Schindler’s new armament factory in Brünnlitz, Czechoslovakia. Inclusion on its list was essentially a passport to safety and kept the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) from being sent to the Nazi death camps.”
In the first chapter, Friedricks introduces readers to Celina at the age of 8 with her aunt gifting her a white puppy in 1939. This snapshot of her “wonderful childhood” in Poland provides a devastatingly stark contrast to the horrors that awaited them after the Nazis invaded her homeland that year.
When Celina and her parents arrived in Iowa in 1947, most people were not interested in hearing about their painful experiences during the war. They decided to keep the past to themselves, live in the moment and look to the future.
Celina excelled in her studies, graduating from North High School and Grinnell College before earning a Master’s degree at Columbia University. She started a family of her own and fulfilled her calling as an educator, teaching elementary school students for 25 years. For decades, she kept her wartime memories “bottled up, hidden beneath the veneer of her picture-perfect suburban life.”
Then, in 1993, director Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List debuted on the big screen, creating a global stage for people to confront the harrowing realities of the Holocaust, allowing survivors to tell their stories to a public now willing to listen.
Breaking her “wall of silence,” Celina started a new chapter of her life, captivating audiences around the country with her story of struggle and survival, which is chronicled in remarkable detail in Friedricks’ Saved By Schindler: The Life of Celina Karp Biniaz.
Friedricks first heard Celina speak in 2017. Approximately two years later, he was invited by the Iowa Jewish Historical Society to discuss writing a book about Celina’s life, a massive undertaking which proved even more difficult as the world was shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friedricks was scheduled to meet Celina in March 2020, but the trip was canceled. Social distancing protocols prohibited in-person interviews and restricted access to libraries and archive centers. As evidenced in these pages, the urgency to share Celina’s story triumphs in the end.
Blending scholarly focus with passionate storytelling, this inspirational biography celebrates Celina’s life and the resilience of the human heart in the darkest of times. ––Mike Kuhlenbeck
LOVE AND POTATO SALAD
Jason Thomas Smith
SELF-PUBLISHED
Iwon’t lie to you. I wasn’t going to read Love and Potato Salad until I read the press quotes on the back of the book. Riddled with jokes but also, quite possibly, real exclamations from shocked readers (“‘Your novel is extremely offensive. Any further attempts to contact any members of our staff for any reason, and we will be forced to inform the proper authorities’ - Today’s Women Christian Faith Magazine”), I knew that I had
to find out what this shit show was all about. I was surprised to find that not only did I genuinely enjoy the absurdity of this book, I found it intelligent as well.
Jason Thomas Smith’s self-published 2022 release is the unrequited love story of the beautiful Sally Jones and the tragic Sparky Ganja. Much like a Shakespearean tragedy, we know the ending right at the beginning. There is a terrible event that takes Sparky Ganja’s life at the Jones Family Barbecue—we just need to figure out how it happens. And we do that by following Chip, an interdimensional omniscient narrator with a whole slew of addictions but a gentle heart.
Through time-travel, meet-cutes and astute, if flawed, narration by Chip, readers are able to absorb every angle of the story. In what was a fantastic choice on Smith’s part, Chip’s all-knowing commentary allows readers to feel as if they’re floating above the plotline much like the alien spaceships that eventually make their appearance. Yes. Alien spaceships.
As you can probably already tell, this novel is filled with ridiculous situations. Somehow, Smith has combined potato salad, drug cartels, aliens, and the familiar passive aggression of your average Midwestern family into one novel, but it never feels disjointed. Rather, Smith’s engrossing prose assures the reader that everything will become connected by the end of the book. And he does not disappoint. It’s a wild ride, but it’s a pleasurable one.
And not only does Smith connect the dots, he also manages to deliver airtight commentary on fate and inevitability. Set against the chaotic backdrop of impending doom to Sparky Ganja, these moments of existential reflection are refreshing and help us contextualize the chaos.
But Love and Potato Salad is not for the faint of heart. While we are able to level with Chip and the other characters in this book in a human way, we also see their very human “flaws.” Sex addiction, binge drinking, drugs, and rough language are the hinges many jokes rely on. While they get easier to forgive as the narrative unfolds, this book may not be fit for squeamish readers.
But raunchy humor aside, Love and Potato Salad feels folky even in its modernity. Smith has created a well-balanced tale of love, heartbreak and fate, even if he relies on potato salad more than your average author. If you’re a fan of Chuck Palahniuk or Thomas Pynchon, you might just like this one. Bonus points if you’ve studied English in college and can pick up on the subtle literary jabs sprinkled throughout. And I can only imagine this book becomes a whole new experience if you spark up a little ganja to go with it. —Lily DeTaeye
