Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Up From Ashes A True Story The Odds Of Love And Hope From Sharon Cameron

Transcript

Up From Ashes A True Story The Odds Of Love And Hope From Sharon Cameron · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's not about just creating one podcast these days. It's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a network. Be alive with your network of connections. One
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: of the hottest features on Arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net, is Alexa and Clarence.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It really is Alexa from Amazon. And I'm just that
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: guy that deals with reality. So you've got AI technology
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and reality. Alexa and Clarence, Street Speak, only on Arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Enjoy your exploration. Hello and good morning. How are you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: doing today?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I am doing very well. Thank you for having me.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so excited to share this with you. And
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the reason being is because this is one of those
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: stories that I really do think that we need to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: put into our educational system because We all grew up
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with the story of Anne Frank. This one needs to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: be a part of this as well. Because, I mean,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: what Selma and Kayim do are just, this is something
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: that we need to tuck away and learn from. And
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you've had the courage to share it with us.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I certainly hope that is one of the impacts
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that this book is able to have, because I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: stories like this, while they are so important for memory
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and to keep things like this from happening again, that
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: is exactly why there are more stories of our now
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: than ever. So I think they're important for our society
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: now to read and to question and understand where we've been,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: but also where we're going.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: One of the things that they teach us in martial
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: arts is that, sure, you could be a third-degree black
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: belt right now, but if you don't know the history
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of where we were before you got your first black belt,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: then it doesn't mean anything. That's why I love what
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you're doing, Sharon, is because it gives us the opportunity.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Know the story so that we can understand where my
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: next footprint is going to be.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's exactly right. I couldn't have put that
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: better myself.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine what you faced with your research and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: then your writing, because I mean, I live this lifestyle.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I know what I go through mentally and I know
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: what my stomach does while I'm doing it.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: The researching a story like this, that, that takes place
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: in such a dark place, the Sobibor death camp in
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Poland in 1943 is, It's very difficult subject matter. The
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Sobibor camp was not a regular concentration camp. It was
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: a murder factory. It was mass murder on an industrial scale.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: That's what it was built for. They could process, in quotes, 2,000
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: to 3,000 people per day. A few of those people
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: would be pulled from the killing trains in order to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: work the camp, so to serve the Nazis or to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: deal with bodies, or in the case of Heim and
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Selma Engel, to sort the clothes of the dead. And
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: that is how they met on Selma's first night in
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the camp. She had been sorting clothes all day. And
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: that evening, her Nazi guards, for their amusement, they ordered
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: her to dance and paired her up with someone else.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: That person was Heim Engel. And In that moment, you know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: they didn't even speak the same language. But as Selma
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: said later, love became their language. And they decided that
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: they were going to be each other's reason to survive
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: this camp. So researching things like this, it is so
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: dark and it's so heavy and so this. I've heard
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: this is the worst thing I've ever read. And then
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: you come back and you listen to someone else's testimony
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: and you realize, no, that's the worst thing. You know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: there is that side of it. But then there's also
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the other side, which in Hyman Selma's case is just
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: incredible hope. This is such a hopeful book. And I
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: hope people feel that balance when they read it.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: My very good friend Tomas is from Poland. When I
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: shared this book with him, I wish you would have
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: been there. I wish you would have been there. Because
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: he looked at me and he said, my mom and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: dad need this book. And you could tell that he
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: was searching for the right words while fighting off the tears.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: He knows exactly, exactly what you're putting inside these pages.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And to hear him with that Polish accent, oh my God,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: like I said, you needed to be in that moment.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: But I'm not going to be the only one that's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: going to go through this. If someone has somebody that's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from Poland in their life, They need to share it
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: with them because you're going to experience something differently.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I think so. I think so. And I hope that's true.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And I and I honestly believe that that is why
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: we need these kinds of histories to be told in
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: story form. You know, I could have written nonfiction. Would
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: I love nonfiction? I could have written that. But I
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: like to take these stories and put them into narrative form.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And this is a highly accurate piece of fiction. So
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: every name in this book is real. Every event is
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: from eyewitness testimony. But there are, of course, things that
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: we cannot know. I don't know the words that everyone said.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we know a thing happened, but we don't know
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: exactly what led up to that. So there are gaps
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: to be filled. But I think when we put histories
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: like this that are highly accurate and we put them
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: into narrative form and we put them into.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Story, you know, it's inside story that we really find
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: the emotional truth of our history. And in the end,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: that's really what we need.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Out of history. It's less about the fact and more
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: about the feeling of this emotional truth of what this
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: individual experienced. And when we can feel that as opposed
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: to knowing that it happened when we can feel that
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: it happened, I think that's when it really has the
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: potential to change us and to change how we interact
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: with our own world. And that can be life-changing and world-changing.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: The name of the book, Up From the Ashes. We'll
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: be right back with Sharon Cameron. Hey, thank you so
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: much for coming back to our conversation with author Sharon Cameron.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The name of the book, Up From Ashes. You bring
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: up something very, very important here, and you kind of
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: touched on it there for just a second. Love doesn't
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: need a language. I really want that on a poster,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: or I want to wear it with a t-shirt where
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: people can see that, and it's going to get them
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to think about what exactly you mean. Love does not
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: need a language. That's so important to where we are
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I will buy this poster from you. That's a fantastic idea. Yes,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I love that because especially in this day and age
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: right now and the society that we are living in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: in America, it is so much more about what we
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: do than what we say. We spout a lot of things,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and sometimes we think other people are saying correct things.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we think they're saying incorrect things. But really, isn't
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: it all about how we are treating the other human
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: being that is right next to us in our world?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: What we do is so much more important and so
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: much more impactful. And I hope that a book like
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: this can help people rethink how they are acting in
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: their world or what they are putting out in their
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: world and lean towards the kindness and the love, even
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to people that, you know, we disagree with, I would
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: hope we could do that. Because, you know, the truth is,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: the Holocaust is about dehumanization. But that has not only
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: happened in the Holocaust, that has happened, history has shown
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: us over and over and over again in our world.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And I think what a story like Up from the
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Ashes can show us and remind us is the fact
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: that each time we take even the smallest step down
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: that road toward dehumanizing another human being, whether it's you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: from a government level or a city level or just,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: you know, from outside our own front door. When we
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: take one step down that road, the end of that
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: road is Soborbor.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: A 99-year-old man just recently told me, I said, so
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: how is it that the silent generation and my mother's
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: generation after World War II was able to stay strong
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and continue replenishing the soil on this land? And he goes,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: we had hope. We had hope. And I looked at
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: him and said, what is hope today? And then all
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: of a sudden in Up From Ashes, what is it about?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: The story of hope. You are speaking to this generation
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: who does not know what hope is.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I hope that's true. I really hope that's true because
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: I do think that that's what we need. I think
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: that Haim and Thelma, that is what they found. That
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: choice of love, that choice to not become like some
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: of those other human beings around them, that choice became
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: so powerful. And I'm sure it didn't seem powerful to
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: them in the moment, but it was because that choice
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: to love gave them hope. strength. It gave them resilience.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It gave them courage. And that hope that was bred
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: out of those things, I really believe that is why
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: they survived. I believe that is why they ran hand
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: in hand out the front gate, why they thought they
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: were able to do it. And I think that it
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: all starts with that one very small but powerful decision.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: And that's a choice we can all make. And I
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: would love to be able to show others in this
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: world that maybe haven't realized that that hope is within
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: their grasp that it really really is that they have
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of power.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Wow where can people go to find out more about
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: everything that you're doing because this is not just a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: one you know a one-hit wonder as we say in
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: radio I mean you've really been at this a long
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: time Yes.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. You can go to sharing Cameron books dot
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: com and find out more about me, more about my books.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And you can get this book and any of my
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: others and all the places where books are sold. But
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: please go to your independent seller.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I love that. I know those people all too well.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And I love every one of them for what they do. Well,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: please come back to the show anytime in the future.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: The door is always going to. Oh, absolutely. You be
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: brilliant today.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: OK, you too. Thank you so much for having me.