Janet Bond Brill, at The Blogs

Jun 8, 2026, 7:28 PM

She Saved Her Sister From the Nazis. The War Never Let Her Go.

Miriam Szurek walked into the most feared address in occupied Warsaw and came out alive. She was a Jewish girl hiding as a Polish Catholic child under the name Krystyna-Marja Skółkowska, a name taken from a tombstone. Arrested on suspicion...

Jun 1, 2026, 7:30 PM

‘Coincidentally’ Born at Mila 18: An Address History Would Claim

I have read Yakov Szurek’s testimony, which sits at the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum, more times than I can count. This time, one line struck me: “coincidentally born at Mila 18.” “I was coincidentally born at Mila 18,” he says. “Most...

May 26, 2026, 12:01 AM

A Memorial Day Reflection

My father served in the U.S. Army in Italy. My mother served as a lieutenant in the WAVES, the Navy's women's reserve, stationed stateside. Both came home. Memorial Day is not for them. It is for the Americans who...

May 20, 2026, 4:45 AM

What We Are Forgetting: A Requiem for Israel and America

There is a photograph sitting on my desk as I write this. It is from 1948, the year Israel declared itself into existence and was immediately fighting five armies for the right to keep existing. Two young men are dug into...

May 18, 2026, 4:52 AM

A Jewish Child, Three Popes, and the One Who Said Nothing

In November 1946, a twelve-year-old girl stood before Pius XII and received a medal. She was a Jewish child from the Warsaw Ghetto, passing as a Catholic orphan. The Pope blessed her. He made the sign of the cross over her...

May 14, 2026, 10:54 PM

The Power and the Heartbreak of the Written Word

On Ringelblum’s milk cans, Anne Frank’s diary, and a grandmother who softened her story for the camera There is a page I cannot stop thinking about. It is dated June 1941. Warsaw. The handwriting runs edge to edge across the paper,...

Apr 29, 2026, 5:50 AM

Beshert · בַּאשֶׁערט

Harry Brill, behind the wire of the train window taking Exodus 1947 passengers to the Poppendorf DP camp. Published in Life magazine. A wider shot of the same scene ran on the front page of The Answer that same month.

September 1947. Two sections of one magazine. A boy behind wire. An actor among the Voices of the Dead. They would never meet. Harry Brill, behind the wire of the train window taking Exodus 1947 passengers to the Poppendorf DP...

Apr 14, 2026, 1:40 AM

Kajtek – A Child in Disguise, a Jewish Martyr, and the Name She Carried into War

“Kajtek,” age 9 – Warsaw Uprising, 1944 Child courier of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa). From Brill family archive.

“Kajtek,” age 9 – Warsaw Uprising, 1944 Child courier of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa). Stefcia (Kajtek), age 9, during the Warsaw Uprising, 1944. Before she was Kajtek, she was Stefcia. Before she was Stefcia, she was Edna. She was not yet...

Apr 10, 2026, 6:30 AM

A Tale of Two Ships

They are all smiling—leaving behind a continent of murdered families, and all that cannot be said. The photograph is not a good one. Blurred. Crowded. Taken on a sun-struck deck in Haifa, strangers drifting through the frame. Edna is smiling. Harry is smiling. Sam...

Mar 19, 2026, 6:34 AM

To Be or Not to Be at Stalag X-B

The final scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, staged by French POWs at Stalag X-B in northern Germany, 1944. From the album Souvenir de ma Captivité compiled by Sylvain Masson. Image from Janet Brill personal collection.

Shakespeare in a Nazi prison camp and the ten-year-old little girl who kept the album In the winter of 1944, two Jews were hiding in plain sight inside a Nazi prisoner of war camp in northern Germany. One was directing Shakespeare for the...

About Me

Janet Bond Brill, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized health author whose four books, including Cholesterol Down and Blood Pressure Down, have helped thousands improve their lives. Her new book, 'Little Edna’s War,' released on January 27, 2026 — International Holocaust Remembrance Day and available on Amazon -- marks a profound departure into historical memoir, born from her devotion to her mother-in-law, Holocaust survivor Edna Stefania Brill. Dr. Brill has twice presented Edna’s story at the Pacific Lutheran University Powell-Heller Conference for Holocaust Education. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband Sam, Edna’s son. Together they cherish their three children and two grandchildren, who are themselves living proof that Hitler failed.