Heart Songs: A Holocaust Memoir

“When an only child’s imaginary friends include her unknown first cousin, Zuzana (Susi), and her unknown grandmother, Oma Clara, both lost in the Holocaust, we know we are about to read a heartfelt true story. But not only. This story is much, much more. This story sings because it’s written by an extraordinary writer, a journalist with a passion for research, an artist with a passion for life, and a psychotherapist with a passion to know deeply the heart. Heart Songs takes us on an odyssey through the author’s childhood, to her grandmother’s last letters, to her father’s monumental efforts to save his mother, to the weaving together of three generations whose legacy transcends their tragic deaths. Heart Songs is filled with longing, loss and grief, yes, but also enduring love.”

-Nancy S. Gorrell, Author, English Teacher, Director of the Holocaust Memorial and Education Center of the Shimon and Sara Birnbaum JCC of Bridgewater (SSBJCC), New Jersey

“Heart Songs: A Holocaust Memoir, is enthralling, impossible to put down. It is a heart wrenching, poignant, and suspenseful story about Barbara Gilford’s family --a family consumed by the Holocaust. Gilford makes us care deeply about the fate of everyone in the Buchsbaum family. Gilford’s poetic prose and trained psychological perceptions about Holocaust survivors and victims make for a compelling read.”

-Rabbi Stuart Gershon, D.D., Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Sinai, Summit, NJ

“What a uniquely compelling story Barbara Gilford has brought to the much-needed canon of Holocaust memoirs. Starting with a discovery of letters, she takes us on a journey filled with her family’s tragedies and triumphs during history’s darkest days, finally emerging in the redeeming power of love, faith and memory.”

-Ken Shuldman, Author of Jazz Survivor, The Story of Louis Bannet, Horn Player of Auschwitz

“Barbara Gilford’s book, Heart Songs: A Holocaust Memoir, beautifully bridges the Holocaust story of her father, grandmother and Buchsbaum relatives and her own story, growing up in a family affected by the Holocaust. Heart Songs is a story of love and loss. But it is also a story of longing: Gilford longs to embrace the family she never knew; she longs to have a conversation with her father about how he felt at critical points in the story she only learns after his death… mostly she longs to tell the story of her relatives’ lives and resilience.”

-Ann Saltzman, Ph.D., Emerita Professor of Psychology, Drew University, and Director Emerita, Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study, Drew University.