MIRIAM ROMM was eight years old when a neighbor's careless
remark overturned her world. From the moment she learned that her
father was adoptive, a yearning to know the truth about her life began,
but it was only when she became a
grandmother that she found the time
to delve into her past. She was consumed by the search for truth in
a race against time as she traveled the globe pursuing a fragile chain
of information that might lead her back to her biological father who
had disappeared during the Holocaust. From the USHMM and Yad
Vashem to archives in Poland and Slovakia, she journeyed to far-flung places
to interview those who knew her father. Following ghostly tracks and fragments
of memory, she painstakingly arranged the pieces of her life's puzzle until
they formed a coherent picture. In captivating prose, Romm makes the reader
of "Ostrich Feathers" her
confidant as she explores the most basic human need to know who we are.
Her incredible search will inform similar journeys of discovery that many
of us are still on.
Miriam Romm has been engaged in genealogical research for ten years, culminating
in her narrative non-fiction book "Ostrich
Feathers," an English
translation of the critically acclaimed Hebrew novel "Notzat Yaen"
(2007). Graduating with a degree in Engineering from The Technion in
Haifa, she worked in marketing for many years and is married to an Israeli
Air Force pilot and diplomat. She is currently working on a book for youngsters,
which will include her own drawings. Miriam volunteers with, and initiates
Jewish commemoration projects, in Israel and Poland.