Editor’s note:
Risk, Resilience, and Redemption: A Miraculous Holocaust Survival Story by Frank W. Baker is an important story well-suited for its intended audience of Grades 5-8. Baker tells the true (love) story of Bluma Tishgarten and Felix Goldberg in clear and direct terms with clarity and compassion. The horrors of the Holocaust are made accessible for young readers. Their journey of survival in concentration camps is heartbreaking, yet the book never loses sight of the human capacity for resilience and love. Risk, Resilience, and Redemption is a reminder that even in the darkest times, hope can endure.
Baker also authored another book about Bluma Tishgarten and Felix Goldberg’s story of survival, We Survived the Holocaust: The Bluma and Felix Goldberg Story - The Graphic Novel (Tree of Life Books, 2022).
Risk, Resilience, and Redemption: A Miraculous Holocaust Survival Story, Frank W. Baker, Tree of Life Books, October 21, 2025.
Excerpt published with permission of the author.
Excerpt:
It’s January. Before the Goldberg family departs for the cemetery where their parents are buried. Esther, the youngest, puts her hands on the Mezuzah, (a Jewish ornament whose prayer blesses all who enter and depart a home), and brings her hand to her mouth—a way of showing respect and remembering God.
“Are you OK?” her brother Karl asks.
“No,” she replies.
Henry, the oldest, looks at her kindly and says, “I understand.”
They get into the car for the long ride. They pass The Tile Center in Columbia, South Carolina, the business their late father ran with their mother, Bluma. Felix started the company when they emigrated to Columbia after the war. At the cemetery, as they walk through headstones toward their parents’ graves, Esther, Karl, and Henry search the ground for small rocks before they reach their parents’ headstone. In a ritual of respect, practiced since biblical times, each of them quietly puts a rock on top of the headstone. They are contemplative.
Esther pulls out a tissue from her purse and begins to dab her eyes. She looks up and says, “Do you want to say it?”
Karl responds with a nod in the positive. He pulls out of his pocket a small piece of paper with some writing on it: it is the Kaddish — a traditional Jewish prayer recited in memory and honor of those who have passed away. Before departing, Henry recalls quietly, “Let us remember: Our mother and father survived Hitler’s Final Solution. It was a miracle. No one could possibly comprehend what they went through.”
Bio: Frank W. Baker has worked in television news, public education and public television. In 2019, Frank was recognized by UNESCO with its GAPMIL (Global Alliance Partnership for Media & Information Literacy) honor. In 1998, he founded the Media Literacy Clearinghouse website and began working with teachers and students to help them better understand how to think critically about the media. Other books include Coming Distractions: Questioning Movies (Capstone, 2007), Political Campaigns & Political Advertising: A Media Literacy Guide (Greenwood, 2009), Media Literacy in The K-12 Classroom (ISTE, 2012), Close Reading the Media: Literacy Lessons and Activities for Every Month of the Year (Routledge, 2017), and We Survived the Holocaust: The Bluma and Felix Goldberg Story - The Graphic Novel (Tree of Life Books, 2022). You can find him online at www.frankwbaker.com.
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Five tiny delights
1. Going out to our botanical garden to take photographs
2. Spending time with my 5 grandchildren, especially when we all get together and take that family photo for our annual holiday card
3. When at the beach, getting up early to watch and photograph the sunrise
4. Listening to jazz music and sharing my love of it with family and friends
5. Taking grandchildren to Saturday morning storytime at the local library
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Five tiny JEWISH delights
1. Watching the eyes of my grandchildren as they walk through the door on the first night of Hanukkah
2. Remembering my mother’s pride and playful joke about our “quadruple Torah” when my twin brother and I shared our Bar Mitzvah
3. Listening to the violin or cello version of the powerful song Kol Kidre performed during Yom Kippur
4. Spinning the dreidel with my grandchildren and laughing as it twirls across the table
5. Sitting at Temple, praying and singing while holding my wife’s hand
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