Finding Roots as a Child of German & Jewish Refugees | Dena Rueb Romero

00:00
I played the piano. I liked classical music. I wasn't into sports. I just didn't feel like a part of things. And I always felt that my parents as refugees had been cut off at the knees. So they weren't really tethered to the earth that wind could come along and blow them away. Today's guest is Dena Rueb Romero.

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Dena's story is one of resilience, identity, and the search for belonging. Growing up as the child of German Jewish refugees in Hanover, New Hampshire, Dena navigated the complexities of historical trauma and personal identity in a way that's both moving and truly insightful. In this episode, Dena shares her journey of uncovering her family's past, the impact of the Holocaust on her parents and herself, and the emotional process of writing a memoir to preserve her family's story.

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We explore how the traumas of the past have shaped her sense of self, the challenges she faced in feeling different from her peers, and the profound moments of connection she found along the way. Dina's story is a testament to the enduring impact of history on our lives. We discuss themes of loss and resilience and the power of storytelling in finding one's roots and giving her the sense of belonging. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with Dena Rueb Romero.

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I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

01:48
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the LifeShift Podcast. I am sitting here with Dena. Hello, Dena. Hi, Matt. Thank you for coming back. So if anyone's listening now, we tried to record a couple of weeks ago, and then we ran into some weather issues. And here we are again. And it's nice to see you again. It's nice to see you. Thank you for wanting to be a part of the LifeShift Podcast. If you'd like to join us again, please do so.

02:12
anyone is listening specifically for you and they don't really know why this show exists. It really stems from my own personal experience when I was eight, my mom died in a motorcycle accident. And at that moment in my life, everything that I knew changed. My parents lived thousands of miles apart and I had to move to a new state and a new school and all these things had changed. And growing up, I didn't really have the place to process it or really talk about it. I think everyone just expected me.

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as an eight-year-old to kind of get over it or move on or just be happy. And in the back of my mind, while I was trying to process things on my own, I always wondered, do other people have these like really seemingly small, like short, pivotal moments that like just changed the whole world? And it's true. A lot of people have these pivotal moments and not just one. And as I get older, now that I'm in my 40s, I realized that it's not just one.

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There are many that come along and I know you, Dina, have mentioned many, but today you're here to talk about one or two of those moments in your life that really shifted and changed everything for you. So that's a little backstory on the Life Shift podcast, but thank you for wanting to tell your story in this conversational way. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. It's, I mean, it's mine because...

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Never could I have imagined, especially as an eight-year-old boy, that I would have this opportunity to talk to strangers all over the world about really vulnerable or personal things and find out how much we have in common. More so than we have different from each other. And so it's just, it's really an opportunity and a pleasure of mine to be able to have this conversation. So thank you for saying that, but it's also mine.

04:03
So before we get into your story, maybe you can just tell us a little bit about who Dina is in 2024. Like what does your life look like these days? Well, I am a retired social worker. I'm 75 years old. I have a wonderful partner in my life. I'm grateful to him for his technical assistance to get me on this program. I live in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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which is actually the place where I was born, but I did leave. I did leave. And I've had a pretty busy, I have a pretty busy retirement and trying to figure out how to slow it down a little bit. So that's me in the present. Yes. I remember when we when we pretend recorded last time before, you were telling me how much you actually do in your retirement. And it was like,

05:02
a long list of things that you are involved in and that you take part in. So I can imagine the want to slow down a little bit. Yes. The biggest activity that I have had for the past, oh, I don't want to even think how many years, is writing a book. And the good news is the book came out in May. And now I've been trying to.

05:30
publicize it a bit. It's not my favorite activity. I am not a marketer. But I've so far had good fortune that people have been interested in the story. And I don't know if it's selling or not. I didn't do it to make money. I did it to tell a story. And now it's out. I bet that feels great. And congratulations for.

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Publishing your book and whether it took you 10 minutes or 10 years or 20 years however long good for you because you've accomplished something that many people will never even do and I love that your Goal with it is really to share your story which you're also here to share part of or an element of that story in your own personal way, but You know, you are the only one that says, you know, that's not my favorite part of

06:27
this book process is marketing it and sharing it with everyone. Yeah, because you know, you're like, I put it, I did the hard work. I put it out there, but this version is even harder. I've been saying to people that having a baby, it would be much easier because for one thing, it takes nine months. And for another thing, it's a natural process. But writing a book and then getting into all the things about

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how do you publish a book? Oh my God. You're like, it shouldn't be this difficult. I didn't know. I didn't realize when I started that it would be so much work. But there's also some joy in it and I'm very happy it's done. Yeah. Well, and imagine since it is such a personal story, I would imagine there's some kind of

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and this is maybe me assuming, but is there some catharsis that comes with closing that chapter of writing it and getting it out into the world? Absolutely. I mean, I don't know if you want me to go into details about what the story is. Sure. I mean, unless you want to tell it through your story, however you want to tell your story, I know that they're intertwined, this conversation and your book. So. Thank you. So.

07:52
A little bit about my background. I was born and raised in Hanover. My parents were German. My father was Jewish. My mother was Lutheran. My father, fortunately, was able to get out of Germany in September of 1938. And for people who know some history, November of 1938.

08:20
was what we call November 10th, crystal night, Kristallnacht, night of the broken glass. My mother had left Germany approximately a year before, gone to England, where she got a job. When my father left, he saw her for two days in London. Then he took the boat to New York.

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And in 1939 was offered a job in Hanover. So my parents weren't together until, and they weren't married because they couldn't marry in Germany. They reunited in February of 1946. Oh, wow. That's quite a gap. They were apart all that time.

09:16
And regrettably, I mean, the sad part of the story is my father was unable to get his parents, his sister and her husband out of Germany. So they were lost on the Holocaust. And growing up in Hanover, there weren't a lot of people who came from that, the same background when I was growing up. There was a very small Jewish community.

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now where we actually have a synagogue, then we didn't. We had a traveling rabbi who came up I think it was every two weeks. And I think I was the only Jewish student, or at that time I identified as Jewish, in my class. With you being kind of the only person or one of the few people of Jewish faith, did that make you feel different than other people?

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different because first of all, my parents weren't Americans. My mother had an accent. They were shopkeepers. My father had a camera store. And Hanover is where Dartmouth College is located. It also has a verifying hospital and that's become actually now it's moved to the next town over, a large medical center.

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So at the time, it felt to me like, you know, if your father, your parents, if your father wasn't a doctor or a professor, you were in a different segment of the world. Plus, I think I sort of took in as a young age that...

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I mean, I knew pieces of my parents' story, but that there had been a huge loss. I knew that I had one set of grandparents, not two. And when they taught us about Thanksgiving and over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house we go, our situation wasn't quite like that. So on the positive side...

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we went to Europe. Yeah, which most Americans probably did not. Right. Not at that time. It wasn't. Right. And I think as I was growing up, my father always talked about feeling isolated. And I can understand that. I always wished that there had been larger community of European refugees here.

12:07
just Europeans who had chosen to live here, who could have said to my mother, you know, this is how it's done here. I had two pigtails. I mean, maybe other girls did. My hair was long. I graduated to a long braid. I played piano. I liked classical music. I wasn't into sports. I just didn't feel like a part of things.

12:37
And I always felt that my parents as refugees had been cut off at the knees. So they weren't really tethered to the earth that wind could come along and blow them away. And you realize, did you feel that as a kid too, or is this on upon reflection? No, as a kid, when we would go to Germany, I think their first trip, my parents,

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made and they took me with them. I was three, so I don't remember much. But we went approximately every two or four years to see my mother's family, and also it was a business trip for my parents, my father. And early on, there were still a lot of bombed out buildings. And I always have this sense that my parents couldn't have protected me from

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bombs falling down from the sky. And that made them seem fragile. I just had this sense of them. They weren't as fragile as I thought they were. But that was my impression. And you didn't have all the fabric, if you will, like all the backstory? Or did you? Did your parents?

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share a lot of that as you were growing up? Or was it more they just didn't talk about it and were moving forward from here? What they shared was primarily their story. You know, that they- Oh, their love story? Their love story, that they held out for each other. They were loyal and everything that they went through to be together.

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I knew that my father's parents and his sister and her husband were killed. And my mother actually shared with me that they thought that my father's sister was pregnant at the time, but they didn't go into a lot of details. And I think they were protective. They didn't want me to have to face that or carry that.

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But as I once said to someone, I feel like loss lived in our house, unspoken, but it was there. Did you ever catch them talking about it to each other, in a sense of like, cause it almost sounds like maybe they just didn't talk about it and they didn't share with you either. They didn't talk about what happened to my father's parents, but

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When we went to Germany, my father always went back to his hometown, which was something that as I got older really confused me. I didn't quite understand that. I figured it out after he died. I decided that he went back to his hometown because that was his Heimat, his home.

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And that was where he was born, that was where he grew up. And he was not gonna let the Nazis take that away from him. And I think it was a very brave stand on his part. He would go back every time he went to Germany. And you found this out after he passed or did you? No, I would sometimes go with him. Okay.

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And did you, but you didn't, did you realize why he was doing that while he was still alive? Or what did you learn about him after he passed? Well, I guess it wasn't so much anything that I learned. It was, it was the only way I could understand it. Why would someone go back to a town where his father had been made to walk through the streets carrying the Torah?

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you know, wearing a prayer shawl with the other Jewish men. Why would my father go back to that? And it was the only way I could understand it. That was his resistance, that this was his town, his home, and nobody was, I mean, they didn't live there anymore, but. No, there's a tether. Right. There was some kind of tether to it. I can understand that. Right.

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And for me, the sort of pivotal or one pivotal moment was after my father died, I went to the town and I went to the Jewish cemetery. I don't remember my father ever taking me to that cemetery. It's in the town. My aunt accompanied me. This is one of my mother's sisters. And

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In the cemetery, I saw graves of my great-grandfather and grea That was a pivotal moment for me because I saw that I had roots, my family had roots, and there were deep roots. They went far back.

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into the past. And that was, it was a very special moment for me to see that. Because all growing up, you kind of didn't feel like a part of something bigger. Well, I didn't feel anchored. Yeah. I mean, when you learn about... New Hampshire didn't anchor you. No. When you learn about the Holocaust, you know, you learn about Nazis coming and picking...

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getting people in the middle of the night and taking them away. I mean, I had nightmares about that because I didn't think my parents could have protected me. I mean, that was what happened. They could protect their children. So it was, and I was gonna say, it was, there was a sense of insecurity. And I think my father, in coming here,

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He had no money. He really didn't have a leg, you know, a foothold. He had to create that for himself. And I think there was always a certain level of anxiety. Am I gonna make it? So, yeah. I wonder if you ever, have you ever thought of the fact that they were?

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so resolute in coming over and leaving and escaping and getting here in its own way was protecting you even though they didn't know you were coming? Well, that's an interesting question. I mean, I wasn't born till 1948, so I don't know what they thought of me before, but I do think they did their best to give me a...

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good childhood to keep me safe and not to load or burden me with the things that had happened to them. So when you saw your family in this graveyard, representation of your family and where they are buried, that gave you a sense of existence in a way? You knew that...

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these people lived way before you and they went through a lot more and now there was something to like tether yourself to. Yes. In a sense. Exactly. And especially since my father's parents have no graves, you know, but there were graves. So of their parents, right? Or their great or their grandparents? So it was my father's great.

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Let's see, sorry, my father's grandfather and his great grandparents. And yeah, that's, that's pretty far back. It's pretty far back. And sort of in the side story is my, my father loved his grandmother. I have her name, Dina. When she died, my father was in the States and his parents didn't have the money.

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to have a tombstone made for her. And also probably the stone maker, tombstone maker wouldn't have made one anyway because he wouldn't work for Jews. So in my father's hometown, there is an amazing group of people and they have been quite active in researching the Jewish history of that town. And they've done a lot of wonderful things.

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And one of the things they did last year, I think it was the 85th anniversary, I'm not good with numbers, of my great grandmother's death. And they had a marker. They paid for a marker with my great grandmother's name and dates and it's in the cemetery, in the Jewish cemetery, which is quite something, very special.

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It is important to have those, like you existed, not you, but like she existed, she was a full human being and we need to represent this and not just disappear into the ether as a lot of lack of records kind of create for so many families in the sense of like, no, they existed. They were people, they were fully formed humans and need to be remembered. And I can imagine how

23:06
I mean, separate from the side story of your great grandmother, but just like seeing that and going, okay, these were real people, and I may not have heard all the stories about them, but they are part of me. Right. Right. How did that change you? Like, did you walk in the world differently? Did you feel like a different type of person at that point? Probably not to the degree.

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that I feel now. I just wanted to go back and say I really loved what you said about the confirmation that these people lived, that they were on the earth. Because I have this, until that time, my family, in my head, they were victims. And it's really

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It's important to think of people as full human beings, you know, not just victims, but the ones buried in the cemetery had lives. They were like regular people, and that is so important. I think the biggest change for me has really been with the book. Oh yeah, how so? Well, I'm grateful I had an editor, and she said,

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you have to include yourself, which I did not want to do. I really just wanted to tell the story. She said, you have to include yourself. So I figured, okay, how am I gonna do this? And the way I did it was I had what I called Hanover interludes. As a matter of fact, I've entitled them Hanover New Hampshire.

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And what I did in those very short sections inserted after a certain number of chapters was to talk about how what I'd just written about affected me and the impact it had on my life. And at the very end of the book, so again, the editor, you've got to write, you know, you have to end with yourself. You...

25:31
You must do that. So I remember writing something like, I'm telling this story, and now I don't have to hold it alone. It is out. It's not that I feel unburdened. I don't feel burdened. But I've done the best I could to honor my parents.

25:58
to honor my grandparents. I've told the story. I mean, it's through my eyes. I know I've made some mistakes. Somebody already pointed that out to me. But the story's out there for other people to read. Hopefully they'll read it and add to the body of work about what happened during that period of time.

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does not resonate, but as you were telling that and telling the story of finding the grave markers of your family members, does any part of you see this book that you've created very similar to that experience of seeing like your book almost being a tombstone that someone can come to and go, they existed in a way? Absolutely. I mean, it's, I loved details.

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I wanted to fill the book with details to prove that my grandparents had been on this earth. And I made a point of starting the book not when my father had to leave Germany, but before when he was born. And you know, the role that his father, my grandfather had in this village and how people

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thought about my grandparents. I mean, I met people who knew them and I wanted them to seem to be real, because they were real. Right. You wanted other people to know that they were real too, not just you. Yes, and not only victims. Yeah, fully formed humans. Right, right. Yeah. Before I go down this one road that I'm thinking of, I'm curious as to why you,

27:56
were kind of adamant about not including yourself in the book. Well, when I started, and believe me, this has been a very long process, I consulted with a woman who lives around here who is a professional or was a professional editor. And she read what I had a few sections I'd written. And she said, take yourself out of the story. So.

28:25
I just thought, you know, this is about not about me. I've been very fortunate in my life. This is about the story. And the editor just said, you have to include yours. Because it is about you. It's you're bound without the book pun going there, but you are bound to these stories, right? These are you. Yes. These are your lineage and everything that.

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whether you knew or not made who you are. Yes, and I think that was why one of the things that made this so positive for me, at times very painful, telling the story, but was really facing the impact that the story had on me. And a big part of it was that I,

29:24
didn't have as a young adolescent, young adult, a kind of a rocky relationship with my father, I think because we were very alike. And I really never fully appreciated his experience. The main focus in the book is really my father. I mean, of course, I talk about my mother.

29:51
My mother was interned on the Isle of Man, I think it was for seven or eight months, as an enemy alien. This was in 1940. So, you know, she went through a lot too. How did you get all these stories? Like, did your parents, I mean, it sounds like your parents didn't really talk about all these things, or did they? Or where did these stories come from? Okay. They did talk about...

30:19
My mother, my father always said she was a guest of the king. That's a nice way of putting it, I guess. Yes, it was a nice, and you know, she was fortunate. She was with a lot of other women and they were in these hotels, the hotels, the Port Erin, where she was on the Isle of Man. It was a seaside resort.

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and people would come from England to be by the sea. But with the war, they weren't coming. So the owners of the hotel were very happy to have these residents because the government paid for them. So my mother was there. And as she said, it wasn't so bad. They had enough to eat. They weren't bombed. So that was good. Yeah, that's good.

31:16
She was truly a guest of the king. And she made her way five years later to your father. Yes, yes. It was not easy. My father tried to get a visa for her. There were so many barriers. And then my mother was gonna come for the 1939 World's Fair. Well, the war broke out. Hitler invaded Poland.

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And then England and France went to war. So she was in England, that was it. Then she couldn't get a visa to come to the States because they weren't giving visas to people who had family in Germany. So the fact that she was in love with a Jewish man, engaged to a Jewish man, meant nothing to the bureaucracies. They really went through a lot.

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to be together. Yeah, I mean, that's a story of love that a lot of people maybe nowadays can't really relate to. So it's beautiful that you have, I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call it a beautiful story because there's so much hardship that came along with it. But the fact that love is and can be that strong is a really inspirational piece to include, even if it's just a small through line in your story,

32:43
I think that's an important thing for people in current generations to read about. Well, the title of the book, the main title, is All for You. And that comes from when my mother left in, I think it was July of 1937, when she left Germany to go to England, not speaking a word of English, but she was going to work in an English family.

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as a nanny. My father saw her on the train platform where she had to change trains, and he couldn't acknowledge, they couldn't acknowledge each other. It was too dangerous. You know, by 1935, Hitler had these racial purity laws, so Aryans and Jews couldn't marry. My mother could no longer work.

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in Jewish homes because she was a young woman under 45. So they couldn't acknowledge each other. But on the platform, my father walked by and passed a note to my mother. And the note said, all for you in his handwriting. And then it had a very small photograph from a contact sheet.

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contact sheets now, but you know, when there were negatives and you'd put the negatives. So a little tiny picture of him, no signature, all for you. And that was it. If he, as he would write that to her, I do everything for you to get you here. Fulfilled that promise. Yes. It took a while, but he fulfilled that promise. And I mean, that's it. It's such a beautiful thing for you to be able to

34:41
And there's so many layers, but to be able to put all of this for your family legacy in one place for people to read about, whether they're in your family or not. Because I think it paints the picture of what so many families probably experienced in one way or another around that time. It's like your story is unique to you, but also there are probably so many through lines that other people...

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their families have gone through and can connect with as well. Would you agree that even though unique, it's similar? Absolutely. One of the main focuses of the story is what life was like for my father. First of all, to have to leave home in his early 30s, to have to start all over again, to have very little financial support from anybody.

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And to go off to this place, you know, at that time, I think it was a six hour train journey from Grand Central Station to Hanover, to this Wasp town where there were very few Jews. You know, he was a refugee. And one of the things when people have asked me, what do I hope people will take from the book?

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Besides wanting to tell the story and add to the story about what happened during this time period and tell about what happened to the Jewish family in Germany, I also very, very much hope that people will find some empathy for refugees, that the people at our southern border.

36:32
I think 99%, this is my figure. I'm not coming from, you know, I haven't read the statistic. But why would people leave their homes and go through so much to get here? Because they're fleeing persecution, economic difficulties. I mean, I think we need to have some empathy and not just say, you know, go away.

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I mean, you make a really great point that although an older story, if you will, through your family, it's current in a weird, scary, terrible way. It can be very current and understandable from 2024, which it shouldn't be. Right. And I don't know if I'm allowed to say this on your program, but the research I was doing

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what happened when Hitler came to power. It was during the presidency of Donald Trump. And there were so many parallels. And I know people say, don't make that comparison. This is not Germany in the 30s. It was very hard not to make the comparison. Especially as you were diving into

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you know, the specific stories and your family and all the things that they had to run from. And then you see similar things happening in current times. And it's hard to not see parallels. And, you know, and that is your you can make whatever connection you want to make. And as we all should be, because we are in a country that is supposedly allowing us to feel however we want to feel. And.

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support, whatever we want to support. And I think it's, I would not discount things that you make parallels to because they are very real. Yes. And if they're not real for other people, then that's because they haven't seen that personally yet. And hopefully they don't. But for people like you that in your family that have experienced these things, and you firsthand experiencing some of these things as well, that is your connection to make, and that is fully valid.

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When Trump was talking about registering Muslims, I mean, that was a real trigger for me. And I made a decision, which was I would go register as a Muslim. I just, we don't do that in this country. We don't register people by religion. So that was, and I was very gratified on it.

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Facebook thing, I saw another rabbi, a rabbi, I'm not a rabbi, had said the same thing. If that was going to be passed, which thank God it wasn't, he was going to register. I have a very dear friend in New York City and I had just read about people who had visas, Muslims, to come to the United States and they weren't being admitted.

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and they were stuck at JFK. So I called my friend and I said, where's your lawyer? Can I get in touch with your lawyer? Because I thought, I mean, sometimes I'm a little, you know, I have ideas that aren't always sensible. And my thought was, well, maybe if I offered to sponsor some of these people who were stuck at the airport, they could get in.

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I found out later at the end of the day that a lot of people from New York went to the airport to protest the fact that these people, Muslims from I don't even know which countries who had visas, they had the right to be admitted. So my friend laughed that I was going to drive down from New Hampshire.

40:51
Well, and I think you haven't said it on this version of our recording, but don't you do some social work or don't you work with some groups of people, refugees maybe? I did for a while work with a refugee family. And I still want to do a little bit of work for the organization. It's an organization that helps refugees and people seeking asylum. So I...

41:20
I really believe in what they're doing and want to help. I mean, it makes sense why you would. It is ingrained in your DNA. It is part of you to have that compassion because of what you and your family have gone through and your lineage has gone through. And I think it's very admirable. You mentioned this writing this book was such a change in you. What do you think's the difference

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or not a change in you, but a pivotal moment in your life. Is there something different about you now that this book is out into the world? Do you feel a different sense or a different version of Dina? I do, I really do. I feel like I am myself. I can focus on my life. I mean, you could say, you know, Dina, you're 75 years old. It's high time to focus on your life. But...

42:17
I think the book has really freed me in a way that I didn't anticipate. I had no idea that it would be so freeing to put this story in paper. And then I've had some lovely experiences with people here. I presented at our local library and invited a lot of people I knew.

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people I knew, so there were a lot of smiling faces. But I've had some very wonderful responses, which also is, I can't quite explain this, Matt, but it's somehow I have the feeling that the book and the story are outside of me, not inside of me. And yes, I wrote the book and my name is on the book,

43:17
The book isn't really me. I'm, I'm, I know I'm not explaining it very well, partly because I don't completely understand it myself. I just feel a lot freer, you know, to be who I am, whoever that is. Well, I mean, I think you were carrying the stories of so many people and you probably, as you know, a child of refugees,

43:45
you were probably carrying their baggage and you, you know, not in a negative way, but you were carrying it. And I think that by putting it out in the world, it makes sense to feel lighter and freer and not that you're detached from it because it's still always you and it's still part of you, but it's like you can put the bag down and you can pick up a different bag right now and do what you want with it. But knowing still that's still your luggage, that's still something that.

44:11
that you'll carry with you, but now other people can. Now other people can feel seen, right, by seeing your story or reading your story. I would imagine people don't feel as isolated or alone in a sense of like, oh, I'm not the only person that's felt like this. Dina felt like this, her family felt like this. Yes. There's more community, if you will, with people you don't even know. Yes. There are people that read it and you're just like.

44:38
You don't even know you're connected now because they've read your book and they haven't told you. Right. You know, Matt, when I was a child, when I was growing up, for a long, long time, I felt tremendous guilt. I felt guilt about what happened to my grandparents and their daughter and son-in-law. And I'd say to myself, why do I feel guilty? I wasn't.

45:07
even alive when that happened. Well, I don't feel that guilt anymore. I feel it. I've done the best I could in telling. You did more than anyone would expect to, you know? You did something that a lot of people will just hold onto and then they're done, right? And then it carries to the next person. And so you've kind of lightened that load for everyone around you. I think it's commendable. And I get, I get.

45:36
I get the guilt piece. I've talked to a couple of people about like epigenetics and how like a lot of trauma seats in like DNA. Yes. And that gets passed through. Yes. And we carry that on. And I kind of feel that of like my grandmother when she was two, her mother died of tuberculosis. Her parents came from Sicily and they came over to the United States and then.

46:03
Her dad was just not a great person, and her mom was like her life basically, but she died when my grandmother was two, and she carried that trauma with her throughout her life. And I feel like I took on some of that, and the more I learn about this lineage of DNA and how it kind of just passes through and we kind of take it. I love the idea that maybe you did too, but now you found a way to lighten that load by telling the story, by letting it out, letting that trauma.

46:33
that you just held onto for, even though it wasn't yours, you let it out for the world to hear. Absolutely. And it's interesting, I always had this desire to be one of the people who went into the concentration camps and helped people, you know, survivors after the war. Well, obviously that made no sense because I was born in 1948 and that...

47:02
You know, it's the wrong time period. But somehow, I agree with you completely. I do think, you know, the DNA, a lot of things have passed on. But do you think you helped? I think you did by doing what you did. I think doing your service right now through this book and telling the story and putting the story into the world, I think that's the way that you were able to help.

47:29
do the things you wanted to do that sounded weird as a child because you couldn't do them. Right. And also, I feel like it's just one more, this maybe sounds right, but one more nail in the coffin of Holocaust denial. Because you can't, it happened. It happened. I have a photograph in my book of the Jewish men being forced to march down the street of the town.

47:59
I mean, it was real. And anybody who says it didn't happen is wrong. It's just wrong. So hopefully the book will help with that as well. Let me ask you, do you think if you had not woven your reflections, your story, your element of you in that book, do you think you would feel as light as you do now? No.

48:28
I don't think so. And part of what I wanted to say or show in the book was this horrible event had an impact not just on the people that affected directly, not just on the people who got away, refugees, but the next generation.

48:57
And it keeps, I mean, this is not over. The Holocaust did not end when Germany surrendered in 1945. They are still finding things. There is still research coming out about what happened. And I think if we, I think there's an imperative to be aware of

49:25
what we do to other people. And we need to look at our own house. We haven't done what Germany has done and is doing to look at their history. We really need to look at ours and what has happened in this country with slavery and racism. We have a long way to go. I...

49:53
earthly of a long way to go. But yeah, I mean, I think I think you're right. I think we can't forget history because then we risk repeating it. We and we're seeing elements bubbling up of the things that we've tried to forget or push back or push away. And so I agree. Right. Right. I mean, we need to, I think, just be more respectful of other people, not other.

50:22
people not be so frightened of difference. Because you said, as you said, that's what makes us cool. We're all the same. You know, we are all human being. We may have different traditions and different cultures, but ultimately can't we find a way to get along? Yeah, no, I hope. I do hope that we get it. And the more I have these conversations, the more I see it.

50:52
And I think the more vocal people are becoming about how they feel and about the way that we should be treating each other, I think for a long time, generations just kind of brush things under the rug or they weren't as vocal about it or they weren't talking about it as much. And I think people are talking about it more. And I hope that leads to, you know, that kind of whole light is the best disinfectant of, you know, the more we talk about it and put it out there.

51:19
hopefully, and you're doing your part in it. You're doing what you can control and by telling your story. So thank you for just doing that and creating that story for the world to read. Well, thank you, Matt, I appreciate that. We try, you know, I think some days I, well, on my desk, on the wall, I have cards on which I wrote something from

51:49
John Lewis's book, I think it's called Bridge or something, it's a memoir, and he writes, do not get lost in the sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime. But he also said, and he also said the next sentence, never ever be afraid to make some noise.

52:18
and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. So, I like this idea of not getting lost in the sea of despair because I could do that. It would be very easy. And then it's about me and that doesn't help anyone. Right, now I agree. It's very easy to get into that and stay in that and feel comfortable in that. And so sometimes we had to get uncomfortable. Yes.

52:46
and we need to have these stories. And I'm so glad that we've had this opportunity to have this conversation despite technology trying to tell us not to. We made it happen. And I love to kind of wrap up these conversations with a question. And I'm curious if, as you started on this journey, however many years ago it was to write this book,

53:09
Is there anything that this version of you would want to tell that version of Dina as you were starting to put those notes together? Oh, that's a lovely question. Trying to think quickly and respond. I think I would say to the Dina that was starting to write the book, hang in there, hold on, you can do this. There will be difficult moments, there will be painful moments.

53:38
where you have to confront things that you'd rather not confront. But all in all, by the time you finish, you will have reached a place where you will have a better understanding, especially of your father, and an understanding of yourself that will allow you to live with yourself without guilt.

54:06
Yeah, and feel free and get to this place of like, letting some of it out and letting it live outside of you, I guess, is kind of how you were describing it before. I think it's, I think you probably wouldn't have believed yourself. You would have been like, oh, there's so much work and how long is it going to take me? And those kind of things. But I think it's so worth it for you just to see you talk about it and how you feel it's changed you.

54:32
If someone listening now wants to check out your book or connect with you, or what's the best way to do that to get into your world? I'm embarrassed to say I don't have a website. And my resistance is because I don't think I'm gonna write another book. However, I'm on Facebook, I believe it's Dina Rube Romero, author. And if they're interested in the book,

55:01
Of course, it's been recommended that I say ask a local independent bookstore to order it. And if that fails, Amazon. We will put the title and we'll put your Facebook link and everything in the show notes so people can easily Google the title and not go to the big place, but go to their local independent bookstore first.

55:30
And if for some reason they cannot leave their house, then they can order it on Amazon and read your story and connect with you in that way and probably see a lot of similarities through their own lineage and the things that families go through, whether that's specific to the Holocaust and being a refugee or just being a family and seeing the stories that come about that. So thank you for one, just wanting to be a part of this life shift journey.

55:57
that I've been on and do it in this way. I just really appreciate you and your willingness to answer maybe weird questions. Oh, they weren't weird, Matt. And it has been an enormous pleasure to meet you, especially maybe meet you twice because of our technical problems that I had. I have to say, I think you are a lovely human being. And I suspect that, you know,

56:27
what your life experiences have contributed to make you the person you are and that comes through in the questions. And so maybe one day we'll meet. Next time I visit my family, I'll let you know when I'm in the New Hampshire area. That would be lovely. I would be honored to meet you. Likewise. And we will be in touch if you are listening and something that...

56:56
Dina said resonates with you. We would love it if you share this episode with a friend or you reach out to Dina, you buy her book, you do all the things. And I would just be appreciative if you leave a five-star review and a little nice little saying on Apple podcasts or something for me. But with that, I'm gonna say goodbye and I will be back next week with a brand new episode of the Life Shift podcast. Thank you, Dina. Thank you, Matt. Thanks.