November 11, 2024 • 57 mins
What would you do if you received an email that unraveled a hidden chapter of your family history? Join us as we embark on a powerful and emotional journey with Michael Hickins, former Wall Street Journal reporter and author of 'The Silk Factory.' A mysterious email from a nephew he'd never known sets Michael on a path to uncover his family's past, which intertwines with the Holocaust, as he learns of a silk factory that was in his family for generations until his father was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Michael travels with his family to Ansbach, Germany, to learn more about the silk factory and the tragic impact of the Holocaust on his parents. This episode explores the importance of sharing our personal stories, uncovering our roots, and understanding the sources of painful experiences at both the individual and collective levels that can be passed along as intergenerational trauma.
As Michael digs deeper, he confronts the emotional complexities of reconnecting with a painful past. His travels to Ansbach, where he finds scarce Jewish historical markers, and Wiesbaden, where historians document his family's deportation, highlight the stark contrasts in how societies choose to acknowledge and remember. The conversation broadens to include his father's harrowing wartime experiences and the post-war mystery of the family's silk factory, painting a poignant picture of survival, loss, and unresolved legacies. Through this narrative, we navigate the intersections of memory, identity, and the weight of history on personal lives.
As we discuss concepts such as epigenetics and intergenerational trauma, we explore how societal acknowledgment—or lack thereof—can influence healing. Michael shares his reflections on his father's hidden fury and its influence on his life, offering insights into how visiting historical sites and engaging with family narratives can aid in breaking cycles of inherited trauma. We discuss the transformative power of storytelling and the crucial role of societal recognition in fostering a healthier future, offering hope that understanding one's roots can lead to healing for future generations.
You can get The Silk Factory here: https://a.co/d/bxK4y9N
Michael's Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C2WMNFC4
Michael’s personal blog: https://michaelmissing.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jamie Serino (00:17):
Hello and welcome to, There's a Lesson in here
Somewhere.
I'm Jamie Serino and I'm PeterCarucci, and we're here today
with Michael Hickins, a formerWall Street Journal reporter and
the founder of the CIO Journal,actually, and an author since
1991, written a bunch of booksand novels, and he's recently
written a book called the SilkFactory, and that's what we're
(00:38):
going to talk about here today.
It delves into Michael'shistory Thank you, peter and it
intertwines with the Holocaustand it's really an amazing story
.
So we're going to dive intothat, michael.
Michael Hickins (00:52):
Thank you for joining us today it's funny
because you say intertwined, andthat's really a good way of
describing what happened.
Um, I've come to find after thebook has been published, and
(01:14):
I've gotten a lot of reallypositive feedback about it.
Um, it resonates with a lot ofpeople in my generation, which
is that, um, our parents um wentthrough the Holocaust and then,
you know, told us almostnothing about it, and so it's
kind of been up to us todiscover, in a lot of cases, the
(01:36):
roots of the trauma that we'vefelt and not even really had a
sense of.
Like.
Where is this?
Why am I so damn angry?
My life's pretty good, um andof like, why am I so damn angry?
My life's pretty good, and youknow, it came about by accident.
As I recounted the story, I oneday got an email from somebody
(01:59):
that I didn't know, and thesubject line intrigued um.
Intrigued me because it said um, uh, my grandmother was Vivian
Bronstein Castillo Hickens.
Um, and the reason thatintrigued me is because Vivian
Bronstein Castillo Hickens is mymother.
I'm like, wait a minute, you're, you know your grandmother is,
(02:22):
but I don't know who you are.
You are, um, and it turned outthat it was, um, the nephew, a
nephew of mine, um, from a halfbrother that I have never met,
and that's part of the story aswell and and they didn't, and
they didn't want you to sendthem ten thousand dollars to to
some, no, and what's funny isthe first reaction when I tell
(02:43):
people that is how much moneydid he ask?
but he asked for nothing.
What he asked for, um, was didI have a photograph of his
father?
Because he had never met hisfather either.
And wow, my mother havingrecently died, um, I had this
box in my basement and she'dalways said to me when I die,
(03:03):
there's this box you gotta lookat.
The'd always said to me when Idie, there's this box, you've
got to look at the box.
So when she died, I looked atthe box.
I was, you know, half hopingmaybe there was like a million
dollars in there or something.
Um, there was, you know, a, a,a bunch of memories.
I, you know there was oldreport cards and photographs of
(03:29):
people that some of that Ididn't know, and, you know,
drunk.
And then you know, life isgoing on.
I have a kid and I'm like youknow, I'll get to look at this
box at some point, but not now,and I put it in my basement.
Here comes this guy who wants aphotograph of his father.
And I'm like, oh, I know it'sprobably in the box, Right.
So I go to the box.
I find a picture of his dad asa as a little kid.
But I also find theseincomprehensible clues, um,
(03:55):
photographs of road signs, ofplaces I've never heard of, like
who takes a photograph of aroad sign unless it's meaningful
.
Right Millon in France, apicture of a guy in a mayoral
garb, signed, you know, to Max,with friendship.
But I'd never heard of this guyand Max is my father's name.
(04:20):
So I'm like, what is all thisstuff?
And so I send Lewisis, mynewfound nephew, the photograph
that he wants.
But in the meantime I'm likegoogling all these places and
names, um, and I'm trying tofind.
Um, I find a, a, a businesscard with a Astor Place address,
(04:45):
and it's got, you know, one ofthose old New York time, old, ye
, olde New York phone numbers,you know, with a Murray Hill
4-3-7-5, right, I'm like, whatis this?
And I so it's.
Obviously my father's maternalgrandfather was Edward Kupfer,
(05:13):
and this was a business card forsomeone with Kupfer as the last
name.
So I'm like, oh, this must havebeen a cousin.
Again, I didn't know we hadcousins in New York.
So I'm like Googling and I don'tfind the Kupfer in New York,
and I kind of broaden the searchand I find a website for the
Kupfer silk factory in Ansbach,germany.
(05:35):
Ansbach is where my father grewup.
I knew that his family owned asilk factory before the Nazis
took it away.
And here's this website thatsays Kupfer Silk Factory.
Family owned for more than 135years.
(05:56):
And I go family owned.
What family are we talkingabout?
Right, last I looked, I wasn'tan industrialist, so that is
what led to a road trip with mywife and my infant, my
three-year-old at the time sonand my grown older son, who's
(06:21):
now 34.
He was, you know, I guess 30 atthe time, um, and we go on this
road trip to germany and franceand we discover all these things
.
Some of them are stillincomprehensible, but a lot of
them answer questions that weresort of in the back of my mind.
(06:42):
But anyway, you saidintermingled and it really is.
I mean, it's like my life todayand I think the lives of a lot
of first-generation survivors ofthe Holocaust Jewish American
people in particular resonatesand the Holocaust is like this
(07:02):
thing that's a long time ago nowbut it still resonates through
the generations and a lot of usjust don't know anything about
it.
Peter Carucci (07:19):
Yeah, also Blomqvist, your earlier work
about basically the 12th centuryNorthern French Normans, you
know, and Vikings conquering,and then the Silk Factory.
And I got to say I think Ireally got in your head, I
really got to see how you thinkand I was always fascinated as I
(07:43):
read Silk Factory.
And is this you personallyspeaking, just everything that
comes out, or do you gate thisand keep it and, as you're
writing, kind of have a filter?
Oh, I need to say this insteadin order to meet, maybe, the
goal of the book, or is it justreally just a memoir of
(08:06):
everything you're feeling andthinking?
Michael Hickins (08:11):
It's a memoir of.
I mean.
It's so raw in a way that Imean there are parts of it that
everyone in my family hate.
In fact, the only things Ichanged are people's names
(08:36):
Because, like my son and, by theway, I mean, there are women
who read this book and they cometo me and go, God, your son
sounds awesome, can I meet yourson?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure,but you know it, he hated the
way he was portrayed and askedme to change the name.
I changed my wife's name, Ichanged most people's names in
(09:01):
my family, just because you know, and I think it's less because
I don't trash anybody, Icertainly don't try to, but I
think that it's just.
It's raw, you know, and I get alot of.
It's weird.
It's like, you know, people go,wow, you're really brave.
And it's like, well, yeah, I'mnot.
(09:21):
It's not like I'm running intoa burning building and rescuing
babies or anything.
I'm not brave in that way, butI suppose emotionally there's a
certain amount of courage ofjust going, like you know, okay,
this is me with all my flawsand hopes and dreams, and I have
to tell you.
Peter Carucci (09:38):
That's actually what I think stood out for me
stylistically with this.
I stood out for mestylistically with this.
I am a victim of my fatherhaving written a book of memoirs
where I it's over heresomewhere in my bookshelves
where it didn't portray mecorrectly, or my other family
(09:59):
members, and so we had to do asimilar thing and say can you
change our names?
Because in his original one he,he, uh, he didn't, but he's
very proud of it.
But the truth is thatstylistically he kind of
tempered himself to createalmost a work of fiction.
And what I found in the silkfactory is you are forgive my
(10:21):
language with balls to the wall,like expressive, and it's very
much like a French Impressionistpainting to me it has so much
expression of not only characterbut your inside thought
processes that I found it very,very captivating in that way.
I know you might have caught inflack for it, but I think
(10:43):
that's one of the burning kindof artistic things I loved about
it.
And then you tie in the historyof what you're learning and I
don't want to begin to explainhow you jump down this journey
in the box and you're finding apiece here and a piece there.
I know you started to explainit already, but I don't want to
(11:05):
ruin the plot there for anyone.
But what winds up happeningthat you find yourself in the
middle of Ansbach, germany, withyour wife?
I mean, I just want to knowwhat happened.
Right then You're in the middleof Germany.
How the heck did this happen?
How the heck did you wind up inthe middle of Germany?
You're just like let me findthis old business card and bam,
(11:28):
you're in Germany.
Michael Hickins (11:28):
I mean, well, I mean the spark.
The spark was that website forthe factory, Right.
So I I wrote to them, I emailedthem and I was like, hey, you
know, um, this belongs to myfather, this belongs to my
father and I would love to comevisit.
And I acted very like I didn'tact like you know.
(11:56):
Oh, I lived in France for 12years and you know I'm very
conversant with Europe.
I was very much like gee, I'dlike to take a trip with my
family and visit you know, kindof very innocent, and it was.
I mean, I didn't have anythoughts about any specific
goals other than I wanted to.
(12:16):
I had one goal right I wantedto see, because my father talked
about the factory to the extentthat he said that I mean, I
knew he had that right and Iknew that he lived there and I
wanted to see where he lived.
I wanted to visit the apartmentand you know this is in the book
(12:40):
as well.
It's like it's a three-storybuilding and next to it is an
annex.
That is the manufacturing bookas well.
It's like it's a three-storybuilding and next to it is an
annex.
That is the manufacturing partof it.
But the three-story building,ground floor, are offices,
second floor offices, thirdfloor living quarters.
And the woman who responded tome even says, oh, the president
(13:01):
of the company still sleeps inthe house.
And my daughter says to medidn't, she mean your house?
You know, but like I wanted tosee that, and so and they were
very courteous they were likesure, come visit when would be
good, you know.
And so I planned this trip,where I also reached out to that
(13:26):
mayor.
There's a picture of a mayorand I found out who it was and
it turns out his grandson hasthe same name as him and was the
former communications officerfor the biggest city in the
region of that town, and it waswhere my father was in the
concentration camp in France.
And what I learned is that thatmayor was able to find homes in
(14:02):
this town of 600 people, 600people, 600 people.
They, they hosted close to 2000Jewish refugees, wow, Um.
And it struck me, you know,when I was writing the book.
Um, it was uh, uh, trump's uh,2016 to 2020 term.
(14:26):
It was 2019 when I went and hewas just saying America is full,
you know, no more immigrants,america is full.
And I'm thinking we're sayingAmerica is full and here this
town of 600 people is hosting2,000 refugees, is hosting 2,000
(14:47):
refugees so they don't have tobe in these horrible
concentration camps where,literally, if you went out at
night and you slipped and felland you were elderly and you
fell face forward in the muckyou would drown because you
couldn't get up and you weredrowning in the muck.
So you know, I visited that guy, the grandson of that, who was
(15:17):
unbelievably welcoming.
But when I went to Germany I wasreally hoping to love Ansbach.
You know what I mean, whatlittle my father had talked
about.
It was, you know, a charminglittle town and it's still a
charming little town and Ireally wanted to fall in love
with it.
But there were no markerswhatsoever of Jews ever having
(15:41):
lived there other than of Jewsever having lived there other
than so there's this thing thatthey have in Germany called
Stolperstein, which areliterally called German for
stumbling blocks, and they'rethese little bronze plaques that
you can buy and place in thesidewalk in front of a house
(16:02):
that would say you know, thesepeople who were Jewish, lived
here before, and it's kind of away of marking, of acknowledging
something right, and there'snone of that other than in front
of the factory.
You could see that the cementwas fresh around it.
(16:24):
It was like they hastily.
They were like oh man, theseguys are coming, we've got to
put these in.
Nothing else anywhere in town.
The synagogue is boarded up andthere's just.
I got really angry while I wasthere, just I got really angry
(16:51):
while I was there.
Um, but while we were there, mywife was like Googling and she
said there's some people who'vewritten an article about your
family.
And I was like you know thatcan't be.
And she's like like well, howmany herschkins were there in
anspach who had a silk factory?
And I'm like what and um?
So there are these historiansin wiesbaden, which is another
(17:14):
city north of bavaria in germany, who were doing um articles
about people who were deportedfrom Wiesbaden and, as it turns
out, members of my family, myfather's mother included, went
to Wiesbaden from Ansbach andother parts of Germany because
(17:35):
Wiesbaden was seen as more of aJew-friendly city and they got
deported too.
But the difference in Wiesbadenyou know I talk about this as
well is that there are threedifferent memorials.
(17:57):
There's a very much like theVietnam War memorial type of
thing, sort of long wall withnames of people who were
deported on plaques, and thenthere's a memorial by the train
that was taking people toAuschwitz, the train depot.
(18:21):
And then there's a memorial inthe town hall that rotates
exhibits and they're verypersonal, little vignettes, um,
the, the.
The larger memorials arebreathtaking, literally like I
found myself almost blacking outum, and I couldn't remember my,
(18:43):
my own family's name.
I'm looking at this wall andI'm like what's their name?
Again, it was just too much.
Jamie Serino (18:51):
So your family had this factory and then your
father then was put in aconcentration camp.
So then I'm assuming the Naziparty then took over the factory
at that point.
Yes, okay, and so then?
Michael Hickins (19:09):
Well, actually no.
What happened is that my fatherand his sister had to give
their shares to my aunt'sex-husband my father's sister's
ex-husband who was not Jewish.
Okay my aunt's ex -husband, myfather's sister's ex-husband,
who was not jewish, so okay, andthen the idea the the deal was
(19:30):
after the war they would patchthings up again or whatever,
right, but that it didn't workout that way.
That's part of the plot of thestory, is sort of story, is sort
of what happened to that.
But my father was then leftGermany and was arrested in
(19:51):
Belgium and put in aconcentration camp in France
Because that mayor wasorganizing a way for Jews to get
out of the camp.
My father was able to apply forvisas.
He ended up going to Cuba withhis first wife and their son and
(20:12):
from Cuba he emigrated to theUnited States.
Jamie Serino (20:15):
Okay, how long was he in the concentration camp?
Michael Hickins (20:19):
He was in the concentration camp for about a
year.
Wow, a little under a year.
Okay, and so was he married atthat point?
Let me amend that Because hewas very quickly living with
that mayor.
Paul Mirat was his name, whatwas his name?
(20:42):
And he was able to leave theconcentration camp and live with
Paul Mirat and but they were inMayon for a little under a year
okay and so.
Jamie Serino (21:03):
So then he's in the us.
And now then you know he's, andand you know you don't have to
delve into too much detail,people will read the book.
But now he's like okay, well,how can I get the war's over,
how can I get my factory back?
And he doesn't, he's not ableto get it back.
Michael Hickins (21:28):
Well, I mean, that's part of the mystery
that's lost in the sands of time, but part of it was he didn't
want to go back.
(21:49):
And that's part of you know, ina weird way, the book could just
be a travelogue.
It's the story of me, my wifeand my children traveling
through Europe and learning allthese things about our past, but
it's also about myrelationships to my wife and
children and how they're damagedby my let's call them neuroses.
(22:16):
Um, my anger over seeminglynothing, and discovering just
how much of that anger is aproduct of what happened to my
father and his family, andrealizing that the root of it
(22:42):
isn't even having lost the silkfactory.
I mean, you know, it's weird,because we tend to see pictures
of Holocaust victims as eitherthey're really really old or
they're children.
Those are the pictures that wereceive.
Right, my father was in his 30s, so he had a whole career,
(23:06):
right?
I mean, he'd gone to university, he had built up this factory
that his grandfather had createdand all of a sudden he's got
nothing.
But that's not the fuel of hisanger, anger.
The fuel of his anger is thatthey killed his mother, you know
(23:28):
.
And not only did they kill hismother, but she was killed in a
mass grave, um, no date like andand the nazis.
And you know, one of the thingsthat the historians of Wiesbaden
did was they brought me to thearchive and I saw a lot of
(23:54):
firsthand documentation how muchmoney they're taking from her
account on any given day forwhatever tax reason that they
can invent, including.
You know, they charge her forthe trip to Auschwitz, but they
can't be bothered to write downthe date that they kill her
(24:15):
Because they, you know she's inthe cattle car.
They march them out into theforest, maybe some of them they
gas and some of them they shootin a pit.
We don't know.
Yeah, that's the thing that Irealize drove my father crazy,
and I mean I use the wordadvisedly because in many ways
(24:37):
he was a normal, affable guy.
You know, normal, affable guy.
Peter Carucci (24:49):
But there was always beneath the surface.
Jamie Serino (24:50):
A a fury that I never really understood and that
I I housed in here yeah, yeah,and and that's one of the things
I love about the exploration inthe book is the idea of
intergenerational trauma.
And so your father had to dealwith the trauma of losing his
(25:11):
mother, and then that anger ofhow he lost her, and then now
you're talking about you dealingwith that Without even
realizing what it was.
Yeah, and then you'rediscovering that in this trip.
So there are a lot of peopleout there that deal with that in
a lot of different ways, andthe Holocaust is a huge example
(25:34):
of that.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that intergenerational
trauma?
Michael Hickins (25:41):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because before I
started writing this book I'dnever heard of the term or knew
that that existed.
But we almost genetically passalong significant trauma that we
(26:01):
incur to subsequent generationsand I hope that I've caught it
early enough that I spare my sonthat anger and that
incomprehension about what thatanger is about.
About what that anger is about,I think there's a lot of
(26:27):
resonances for our society inmany ways, whether it's African
Americans or Native Americans orJapanese who were interned,
where we're not very good atmaking amends as a society.
(26:48):
And one of the things I foundand the reason I was talking
about Wiesbaden and thememorials is because, you know,
the feeling I had in Wiesbadenwas 180 degrees out from what I
had in Ansbach, where in onecity there was absolutely no
acknowledgement of anything atall and I was beside myself with
(27:14):
fury, and in Wiesbaden, wherethey seemed to bend over
backwards to acknowledge whathappened and to try to make
amends in some small way, and itwas very meaningful to me.
Um and so.
So I think that the converse ofthe generational trauma is like
okay, so what do we do aboutthat?
Because we don't need to livewith that right.
(27:37):
We can.
Peter Carucci (27:38):
we can fix that yeah, it seems that in your
desire to seek any kind ofhealing through acknowledgement
of the wrong helped some degreeof cognizance for you that it
(27:59):
can be okay, that you can startto heal, whereas in Ausbach the
fact there's nothing there atleast when I was reading that
you were so fuming about it,it's still.
You know.
I wonder what society can do tobegin or not to begin to
(28:21):
actually help fully.
I mean, will we ever heal fromthis you?
know, I don't know, I just saida lot of stuff there, but I was
really fascinated by your desirefor acknowledgement of what
happened in this.
Alsbach.
They did not, and WeissbWiesbaden.
Michael Hickins (28:45):
Yeah, ansbach and Wiesbaden, you're doing a
good job there.
Peter Carucci (28:50):
It began to heal you a little.
At least I read that.
I felt that you know what Imean.
Even still in Wiesbaden you'restill like it's just a little
bit.
You know what it means I mean.
Michael Hickins (29:04):
Wiesbaden was good, and then going to Mayon
and realizing, you know, meetingthe grandson of that mayor and
the incredible humanity that hedisplays yeah, and yeah, there
(29:24):
are some pretty interestingphotographs in that book as well
the humanity that that thatthey displayed is as much a
healing agent as anything youknow.
(29:45):
I also, you know, you broughtup Blomqvist and I'm like what
is the commonality between SilkFactory and Blomqvist?
And in both there's kind of thequestion of faith, right, and
in both there's kind of thequestion of faith, right,
(30:07):
because Blomqvist, the narrator,is bereft, because his
religious tradition has beendestroyed, right, the Norse gods
have been vanquished byChristendom, have been
vanquished by Christendom.
And so he's, and because it'san epic adventure, they're
(30:32):
running into all these differentpeople with these different
faiths and he's trying to findone that corresponds to his
personal belief system orsomething right, yeah, something
(30:53):
right.
Um, and my father, um, had, umhad been very religious at one
point in his life, um, but whenI was growing up he wasn't at
all.
We didn't, you know, we didn't.
You know we didn't keep kosher,we didn't keep the Sabbath.
There was, you know, the highholidays high holidays we
(31:18):
observed, and Hanukkah, for mysake, and Passover, but that was
basically it.
And you know he died when I wasvery young, so I was 15.
So we never had a chance toreally have those conversations
(31:40):
like you know, dad, why did youstop being a practicing Jew?
Um, uh and and and, um.
You know, again, it comes downto what happened to his mother.
(32:02):
What happened to his mother,you know, it's something I felt
on top of, like even more thanthe material goods that were
taken from him, and even youknow more than his livelihood
(32:27):
and his homeland and where hegrew up.
And I mean, just think abouthow attached we are to where we
live, patriotism aside, right, Imean we grow up somewhere and
it's part of who we are, and allof a sudden that's ripped away
and we take it for grantedbecause we're americans.
That well, you know.
At least he came to america agreat place to be right.
(32:47):
Everyone wants to come toamerica, not necessarily right.
Some people were very happywhere they were, or thought they
were, um, but on top of that,you know, they killed his mother
, and God let that happen.
(33:17):
And that is the thing I thinkthat you know they took the
Nazis, took his faith away, andto me that's almost.
I don't know if it's almostworse, but it's, you know, and I
don't know for sure, but ifthat's the case, that's really
tragic Because at some point itwas important to him.
Jamie Serino (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean so much there that he had to
carry, to carry.
So you brought up so much, likeyou know, physically removed
from where he was living, right,Killing his mother, taking away
his career, his livelihood, hiswhole identity, and not being
in control of any of that.
You end up somewhere okay,maybe ended up in an okay place,
(33:55):
but not being in control of anyof that and having that
identity shift on a lot oflevels just very sudden and
being put in a concentrationcamp.
There's so much that he had tocarry and you talked about, you
know, getting back to theintergenerational trauma, you
know what you were referring toI think might be called
(34:15):
epigenetics, where you canactually pass biologically that
trauma along, and they actuallyuse the Holocaust to prove that
and they used Holocaustsurvivors to prove the concept
of epigenetics, that it doesexist, and you were talking
about being worried aboutpassing that along to your son.
So how did the trip and theexperience and now post-trip,
(34:41):
how did that affect yourrelationship with your son?
How do you feel about that now,about him and about passing
along that trauma?
Michael Hickins (34:53):
Well, you know it's interesting to me that I've
been married to non-Jews, andyou know my family.
They were all Jewish, jewishand I was told from an early age
(35:17):
that it was important to marrya Jewish woman because otherwise
that would become a thing and Idon't know whether on some
level, consciously orgenetically, I wanted to
(35:42):
diversify my own gene pool.
I know that as a father, itbecame really important to me to
become more self-aware and tochange my behavior and to be
(36:15):
less like my father, in certainways Consciously.
Yeah, I mean it's funny becausemy dad used to say to me when
he would get really mad at me,for whatever reason, he would
say my father would have slappedme, which was terrifying
because occasionally he would spslapped me, which was
(36:36):
terrifying because occasionallyhe would spank.
He would spank me and on oneoccasion did slap me.
But you know I've never youknow we don't spank Max.
But there's an episode in thebook that I won't spoil.
(36:56):
But I've tried to consciouslymitigate that with Max and I
hope that I'm not passing thattrauma along to him.
But you know, he was three whenwe went on that trip, so a lot
(37:25):
went on in his life before that.
But you know, it's interestingwhen we were in the factory.
So we get this tour of thefactory and it's me and Carol
and my older son Catfish and Maxin the stroller.
(37:48):
As we're getting the tour andas it becomes clear that the guy
who's the, so the tour is givento me by the current CEO of the
company and I'm getting angrierand angrier at him for reasons
that I'll leave for the readersto discover.
(38:09):
But as I'm getting angrier, maxis getting fussier and fussier
in his stroller, to the pointwhere Carol has to leave with
him so that we can finish thetour without this.
You know, squalling kid,basically driving everybody
crazy.
Um, and you know, I found itinteresting that without I mean
(38:36):
he was three without knowing,without knowing anything or
understanding anything aboutwhat was going on, he could just
feel it, he could feel the, thevibe.
Jamie Serino (38:50):
And um, yeah, so you know yeah, and so another
thing I wanted to kind of returnto is I mean, I think it's
wonderful that you know you'vewritten this book.
It's a memoir.
It's a memoir, but you're alsosort of documenting something
here, and anytime something canget documented about the
(39:10):
Holocaust I'm happy aboutbecause, as we know, there are
people out there actively tryingto say that it didn't happen,
right, so anytime you can sortof plant the flag and say here's
more evidence that it happened.
And you touched upon that withone town saying it happened and
another town not reallyacknowledging it.
(39:32):
You know, and you know you tryto look at it in both ways, like
the German people.
When I speak to people fromGermany, some of them do have
tremendous guilt about it andthey want to move on, not
necessarily be reminded about itall the time, and then some
feel that it should beacknowledged, you know.
And then you have people sayingit didn't happen.
And then you know you have.
So my grandfather was in WorldWar II II and he was one of the
(39:55):
people who liberated Dachau andhe had those stories and I have
some documentation and stuff,and so I think it's great that
you've written this memoir.
You've sort of planted anotherflag, like this happened.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that?
You did talk a little bit aboutit in terms of comparing the
two towns, but anything else inyour experience where now you
(40:20):
feel like I have this sort ofevidence and there are people
out there trying to say itdidn't happen.
What are some thoughts aboutthat?
Michael Hickins (40:29):
It's interesting that you should say
that, because the box had a lotof things, um, when I started to
really look at it, a lot ofartifacts, historical artifacts
like um, um, well, I can't nowthink of the word in English, I
(40:56):
know it in French because it'sin French.
It's a document basically set,it's like a hall pass for
checkpoints, and basically thereare these.
Some of them are written inpencil on the back of a scrap of
paper, basically signed by ayou know notable, saying you
(41:19):
know, this person is allowed togo to this place at this
particular time.
There are, you know, rationcards, there are a lot of
documents that help place thoseevents in a particular time, and
(41:43):
a very good friend who lives inFrance, who's French, he read
my book and we met up for lunchone day.
I was visiting about a yearafter the book came out and he
said you missed a really greatopportunity to really go in
(42:06):
depth and talk about each one ofthose artifacts.
And I was like, well, I didn'twant to slow the narrative down.
And he's like, well, you shouldblog about it.
So I did.
For about a year I wrote adifferent piece about a
(42:29):
particular artifact, whether itwas like something to do with a
letter from the prefect sayingthat my father's wife was not
allowed to travel from theconcentration camp to the house
where they were living in Mayon.
She had to go back.
(42:50):
Her father could stay, so theywould just.
And I would write about exactlywhat the piece was.
And you know I took a pictureof it and included it in the
post and I mean there's morethan can fit in a narrative, in
a memoir, and particularly, youknow you want it to be readable.
(43:12):
I mean I wrote it so that peoplewould read it, so I didn't slow
the narrative down every timethere was a piece of
documentation to really.
But there are pictures of someof them.
But my publisher also was like,you know, people like photos
but they don't like pictures ofdocuments.
So there aren't as manydocuments there, but easy enough
to find my blog.
(43:33):
But it is but easy enough tofind my blog.
But it was part of what Iwanted to do was to counter the
narrative of denial.
You know, yeah, withoutexplicitly saying hey, deniers
are full of it but just tobasically say you can't deny
(43:56):
this because I've seen itexactly.
Peter Carucci (43:57):
you know, I'm really glad to hear you say this
, having known you for a while,because when I read that in the
book your kind of self-discoveryjourney in your mother's box, I
remember feeling kind of like Iwas there in that room as
you're discovering it all andand trying to figure out what
(44:17):
happens, and I can't wait to seeor check out your blog now.
You know that's really greatbecause it's not only just you
know your father's trauma, butalso how your mother handled it,
how you handled her not openingto you all those years that she
(44:37):
must have known stuff.
And as I was, I rememberthinking, wait, what you know,
what you know like.
And you that's because you'revoicing like how could she not
have said this to?
me and especially because I knowwe talk often we're both
history freaks like yourprevious book dove into
literally the 12th centuryspecific historiographical stuff
(45:01):
.
Get it right for crying out loud1057, I know, you know, I know,
and then, but to find out thatin your own life that history
part was kind of missing in away, I thought was really very
powerful, especially, you know.
(45:23):
And also I have a secondquestion for you.
That's really bizarre andseemingly trivial, but I think
it does speak to some of thatlack of self-history that I
think you discovered, kind ofgiving yourself your own
opportunity to rediscoveryourself.
Second to that which I wouldlove for you to talk about, that
(45:45):
kind of history and yourpersonal history is I remember
that you named your son in thebook Thurman and I remember the
reason.
Why.
Is that okay to break this?
Can you explain that to us?
Michael Hickins (46:01):
Well, yeah, so my older son's name is Catfish
and the reason I named himCatfish in real life is because,
while I was living in France,his mother was French.
Our relationship was doomedfrom the beginning, so I wanted
(46:23):
to make sure that he hadsomething indelibly American
about him and, as a lifelongYankees fan, I was just.
Catfish Hunter was a favoriteof mine Not my favorite, but one
of my favorites, and the reasonI say not.
(46:45):
And so I convinced his motherthat.
So I'm a Taurus not that I'mreally into astrology, but I'm a
Taurus.
She's a Pisces.
Catfish is, as everyone knows,like amphibian right Can live
outside the water, bottom feeder, one of the oldest species on
earth, a survivor.
So I convinced her that thiswas a good name because of that.
(47:06):
And yeah, he's also a baseballplayer.
But really, you know this rightand she bought into it.
My favorite baseball player ofall time is Thurman Munson, but
the French cannot pronounce theTH, so he would have been
Thurman.
See, they call him Kekfiche,right?
(47:27):
Fortunately he's a big, strongkid, never really had to worry
too much about being teasedabout it, um, but they pronounce
it correctly pretty much.
But Thurman would have beenlike torture, it would have been
like condemning him to alifetime of no one ever being
able to pronounce his name.
(47:48):
So I didn't name him Thurmanafter Thurman Munson.
But when he you know, when heasked me to change his name in
the book, I changed it toThurman and I added in how
difficult it was for the Frenchto pronounce, which is probably
(48:11):
the only invented part of thebook, but it compensates for the
fact that there's a sectionthat I had to take out where he
talked about how at one pointyou know as a grownup someone in
a bar said to him were yourparents like drunk when they
named you?
And he had to resist thetemptation to beat them to a
bloody pulp, um and um.
(48:31):
And since I had to change that,I changed it somewhat to be
Thurman.
Did I answer your question,peter?
Peter Carucci (48:39):
Yes, I love that.
I love that Especially.
You know he was my favoriteplayer when I was a little kid.
I'm a Mets fan, loving ThurmanMunson and my baseball card
collection, all that.
So now all right.
So now that's cool.
Now, the history that you findyourself uncovering as you're
(49:02):
going through this helps you.
Did it help you heal?
Michael Hickins (49:10):
I think so.
I mean, it's not so much thatit helped me heal, which I think
it did.
It helped me heal which I thinkit did.
It helped me get more in touchwith the roots of my behavior in
(49:31):
a way that allowed me to changeit, because it's one thing to
understand something on anintellectual level and it's
another to allow it to permeateyou in a way that allows you to.
Actually, because no one goesin.
I didn't go into a situationbeing like gosh, darn it, I'm
(49:52):
going to lose my temper rightnow.
You know what?
In about a half hour, I think Ishould lose my temper.
That's not how it works, right?
Like you're going todoop-de-doop-de-doop, bam, you
lose your temper.
Like you poof and to learn whatis underlying your own psyche,
(50:14):
in a way that an insignificantincident can cause you to lose
your temper.
I find that I'm losing mytemper much more rarely.
Let's say, I haven't achievedperfect equanimity yet, but I'm
(50:35):
getting there.
You know, perfect equanimityyet, but getting there, yeah.
Jamie Serino (50:38):
So so the the trip and the experience seemed to
like resolve certain things,that that you, that were
bothering you, I guess, and someof which it seems you knew and
maybe some of which you didn'tquite know.
So it was certainly therapeutic, but I guess you know if you
have any advice for people thatyou think may have
(51:02):
intergenerational trauma or justsomething that's unresolved for
them, besides telling them totake a trip to Germany or
something like that, like, doyou have any other advice for
for someone to you know, have atherapeutic experience like the
way you did?
Michael Hickins (51:16):
You know, I did one thing Towards the end of
her life.
My mom came to live with us andI probed her with questions and
I recorded them.
I recorded her answers and Irecorded them.
(51:37):
I recorded her answers and Iwould urge anybody who's got any
relatives who are still alivewho experienced the Holocaust in
any way, even if they were kidsat the time, ask them about it
and record it.
And the reason I say record itis because a lot of what my
(51:59):
mother said I didn't hear,because the previous thing she
said was so shocking that I wasstill processing it while she
kept talking, and if I hadn'trecorded it I wouldn't have
heard the next part.
It's like I'm lucky because Ialso I'm a writer.
I wrote a book, I had thisrecording that I could kind of
(52:22):
refer to, not about anythingspecifically, um, related to my
father, but in her ownexperiences, right.
so yeah um, um, because shehappened to live in france too
during the war, right, so sothere was, there were, there
(52:43):
were layers to this, but, um,having access to that, I would
say you know absolutely, really,whether you're a writer or not.
Record those conversationsbecause, um, you're sure to
capture what is said and hear itagain.
And if you're a Holocaustsurvivor, tell someone, tell
(53:04):
your family you know, talk aboutit, overcome the reticence and
what I think for a lot of peopleis the survivor's guilt.
Right, get over that, becauseotherwise what you're doing is
you're just passing it along andpeople aren't understanding
what's at the root of it.
Jamie Serino (53:23):
Wow, yeah, that's really powerful and that's great
advice.
I think that's a pretty strongway, maybe to conclude here Is
there anything else that you'dwant to add, anything else you'd
want people to know?
And, peter, if you have anyother questions, as we look to
conclude here Is there anythingelse that you'd want to add,
anything else you'd want peopleto know?
Peter Carucci (53:37):
And, peter, if you have any other questions, as
we look to conclude, I justwant to say I'm really grateful
for the opportunity to have thisdiscussion with you.
It's really cool.
You know we call this.
There's a lesson in heresomewhere and really like there
are so many lessons just in here, you know.
Michael Hickins (53:58):
We're just really grateful you were able to
join us.
Well, I'm really grateful toyou guys for hosting me and
asking me some thoughtfulquestions, and I just have to
say that there's a lot ofinternal conflict involved in
sort of approaching this, thistopic.
(54:18):
I mean, this is something thatwe, you know, we, we we barely
touched on, for instance, whichis the whole, the whole concept
of financial remuneration.
Um and there's a guilt elementto that as well, which is, like,
you know, um, am I just tryingto, you know, get my hands on
some reparations?
What you know?
(54:38):
Is that wrong?
And you know so, and I thinkit's.
I think that my own case inpart, I do feel that reparations
are important Because that'sthe way we acknowledge things.
(55:00):
You know, it's like in the goback to the, to the bible.
You know, it's like, um, thereason that, uh, the jewish
bible has these sort of veryspecific laws about.
You know, um, if you know youaccidentally kill your
brother-in-law, then you have toprovide this and that to.
It's because before that, itwas chaos and there was blood
(55:25):
feuds, and these people camealong and said, no, look, we're
going to quantify this.
It's like, okay, it doesn'tmake up for your emotional loss,
but it makes up for your, youknow, loss of income, for lack
of a better word but we.
It's a way to acknowledge whathappened and own own the
(55:47):
behavior yeah exactly, and it isa way of it is a way, it is a
way that you can atone right asthe perpetrator.
So I say that because, you know, as Americans and I said this
earlier we're not very good atthis, but it's like, and it's
being discussed now.
You know what?
What does the United States oweAfrican Americans?
(56:11):
And you know, I don't know whatthe answer is, but I know the
answer is there's, it'ssomething.
And until there's thatacknowledgement and I can speak
from personal experience aboutthat just acknowledging that a
wrong was committed and beingwilling to put a value on that
(56:34):
goes a long way towards healingwounds that have not healed in
over 100 years.
Jamie Serino (56:40):
Yeah, yeah, putting a value on it, that's a
good phrase, all right, well,michael, thanks again and thanks
everybody for joining us.
Michael Hickins, the SilkFactory.
Google that Check out Michael'sblog as well for all those
things in the box A lot of stuffand a lot of other books from
(57:01):
Michael that you can explore, socheck them out.
All right, Michael.
Michael Hickins (57:05):
Thanks very much.
Jamie Serino (57:06):
I look forward to seeing you again, all right.
Michael Hickins (57:08):
All right, take care.
Jamie Serino (57:10):
Bye,
Hello and welcome to, There's a Lesson in here
Somewhere.
I'm Jamie Serino and I'm PeterCarucci, and we're here today
with Michael Hickins, a formerWall Street Journal reporter and
the founder of the CIO Journal,actually, and an author since
1991, written a bunch of booksand novels, and he's recently
written a book called the SilkFactory, and that's what we're
(00:38):
going to talk about here today.
It delves into Michael'shistory Thank you, peter and it
intertwines with the Holocaustand it's really an amazing story
.
So we're going to dive intothat, michael.
Michael Hickins (00:52):
Thank you for joining us today it's funny
because you say intertwined, andthat's really a good way of
describing what happened.
Um, I've come to find after thebook has been published, and
(01:14):
I've gotten a lot of reallypositive feedback about it.
Um, it resonates with a lot ofpeople in my generation, which
is that, um, our parents um wentthrough the Holocaust and then,
you know, told us almostnothing about it, and so it's
kind of been up to us todiscover, in a lot of cases, the
(01:36):
roots of the trauma that we'vefelt and not even really had a
sense of.
Like.
Where is this?
Why am I so damn angry?
My life's pretty good, um andof like, why am I so damn angry?
My life's pretty good, and youknow, it came about by accident.
As I recounted the story, I oneday got an email from somebody
(01:59):
that I didn't know, and thesubject line intrigued um.
Intrigued me because it said um, uh, my grandmother was Vivian
Bronstein Castillo Hickens.
Um, and the reason thatintrigued me is because Vivian
Bronstein Castillo Hickens is mymother.
I'm like, wait a minute, you're, you know your grandmother is,
(02:22):
but I don't know who you are.
You are, um, and it turned outthat it was, um, the nephew, a
nephew of mine, um, from a halfbrother that I have never met,
and that's part of the story aswell and and they didn't, and
they didn't want you to sendthem ten thousand dollars to to
some, no, and what's funny isthe first reaction when I tell
(02:43):
people that is how much moneydid he ask?
but he asked for nothing.
What he asked for, um, was didI have a photograph of his
father?
Because he had never met hisfather either.
And wow, my mother havingrecently died, um, I had this
box in my basement and she'dalways said to me when I die,
(03:03):
there's this box you gotta lookat.
The'd always said to me when Idie, there's this box, you've
got to look at the box.
So when she died, I looked atthe box.
I was, you know, half hopingmaybe there was like a million
dollars in there or something.
Um, there was, you know, a, a,a bunch of memories.
I, you know there was oldreport cards and photographs of
(03:29):
people that some of that Ididn't know, and, you know,
drunk.
And then you know, life isgoing on.
I have a kid and I'm like youknow, I'll get to look at this
box at some point, but not now,and I put it in my basement.
Here comes this guy who wants aphotograph of his father.
And I'm like, oh, I know it'sprobably in the box, Right.
So I go to the box.
I find a picture of his dad asa as a little kid.
But I also find theseincomprehensible clues, um,
(03:55):
photographs of road signs, ofplaces I've never heard of, like
who takes a photograph of aroad sign unless it's meaningful
.
Right Millon in France, apicture of a guy in a mayoral
garb, signed, you know, to Max,with friendship.
But I'd never heard of this guyand Max is my father's name.
(04:20):
So I'm like, what is all thisstuff?
And so I send Lewisis, mynewfound nephew, the photograph
that he wants.
But in the meantime I'm likegoogling all these places and
names, um, and I'm trying tofind.
Um, I find a, a, a businesscard with a Astor Place address,
(04:45):
and it's got, you know, one ofthose old New York time, old, ye
, olde New York phone numbers,you know, with a Murray Hill
4-3-7-5, right, I'm like, whatis this?
And I so it's.
Obviously my father's maternalgrandfather was Edward Kupfer,
(05:13):
and this was a business card forsomeone with Kupfer as the last
name.
So I'm like, oh, this must havebeen a cousin.
Again, I didn't know we hadcousins in New York.
So I'm like Googling and I don'tfind the Kupfer in New York,
and I kind of broaden the searchand I find a website for the
Kupfer silk factory in Ansbach,germany.
(05:35):
Ansbach is where my father grewup.
I knew that his family owned asilk factory before the Nazis
took it away.
And here's this website thatsays Kupfer Silk Factory.
Family owned for more than 135years.
(05:56):
And I go family owned.
What family are we talkingabout?
Right, last I looked, I wasn'tan industrialist, so that is
what led to a road trip with mywife and my infant, my
three-year-old at the time sonand my grown older son, who's
(06:21):
now 34.
He was, you know, I guess 30 atthe time, um, and we go on this
road trip to germany and franceand we discover all these things
.
Some of them are stillincomprehensible, but a lot of
them answer questions that weresort of in the back of my mind.
(06:42):
But anyway, you saidintermingled and it really is.
I mean, it's like my life todayand I think the lives of a lot
of first-generation survivors ofthe Holocaust Jewish American
people in particular resonatesand the Holocaust is like this
(07:02):
thing that's a long time ago nowbut it still resonates through
the generations and a lot of usjust don't know anything about
it.
Peter Carucci (07:19):
Yeah, also Blomqvist, your earlier work
about basically the 12th centuryNorthern French Normans, you
know, and Vikings conquering,and then the Silk Factory.
And I got to say I think Ireally got in your head, I
really got to see how you thinkand I was always fascinated as I
(07:43):
read Silk Factory.
And is this you personallyspeaking, just everything that
comes out, or do you gate thisand keep it and, as you're
writing, kind of have a filter?
Oh, I need to say this insteadin order to meet, maybe, the
goal of the book, or is it justreally just a memoir of
(08:06):
everything you're feeling andthinking?
Michael Hickins (08:11):
It's a memoir of.
I mean.
It's so raw in a way that Imean there are parts of it that
everyone in my family hate.
In fact, the only things Ichanged are people's names
(08:36):
Because, like my son and, by theway, I mean, there are women
who read this book and they cometo me and go, God, your son
sounds awesome, can I meet yourson?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, sure,but you know it, he hated the
way he was portrayed and askedme to change the name.
I changed my wife's name, Ichanged most people's names in
(09:01):
my family, just because you know, and I think it's less because
I don't trash anybody, Icertainly don't try to, but I
think that it's just.
It's raw, you know, and I get alot of.
It's weird.
It's like, you know, people go,wow, you're really brave.
And it's like, well, yeah, I'mnot.
(09:21):
It's not like I'm running intoa burning building and rescuing
babies or anything.
I'm not brave in that way, butI suppose emotionally there's a
certain amount of courage ofjust going, like you know, okay,
this is me with all my flawsand hopes and dreams, and I have
to tell you.
Peter Carucci (09:38):
That's actually what I think stood out for me
stylistically with this.
I stood out for mestylistically with this.
I am a victim of my fatherhaving written a book of memoirs
where I it's over heresomewhere in my bookshelves
where it didn't portray mecorrectly, or my other family
(09:59):
members, and so we had to do asimilar thing and say can you
change our names?
Because in his original one he,he, uh, he didn't, but he's
very proud of it.
But the truth is thatstylistically he kind of
tempered himself to createalmost a work of fiction.
And what I found in the silkfactory is you are forgive my
(10:21):
language with balls to the wall,like expressive, and it's very
much like a French Impressionistpainting to me it has so much
expression of not only characterbut your inside thought
processes that I found it very,very captivating in that way.
I know you might have caught inflack for it, but I think
(10:43):
that's one of the burning kindof artistic things I loved about
it.
And then you tie in the historyof what you're learning and I
don't want to begin to explainhow you jump down this journey
in the box and you're finding apiece here and a piece there.
I know you started to explainit already, but I don't want to
(11:05):
ruin the plot there for anyone.
But what winds up happeningthat you find yourself in the
middle of Ansbach, germany, withyour wife?
I mean, I just want to knowwhat happened.
Right then You're in the middleof Germany.
How the heck did this happen?
How the heck did you wind up inthe middle of Germany?
You're just like let me findthis old business card and bam,
(11:28):
you're in Germany.
Michael Hickins (11:28):
I mean, well, I mean the spark.
The spark was that website forthe factory, Right.
So I I wrote to them, I emailedthem and I was like, hey, you
know, um, this belongs to myfather, this belongs to my
father and I would love to comevisit.
And I acted very like I didn'tact like you know.
(11:56):
Oh, I lived in France for 12years and you know I'm very
conversant with Europe.
I was very much like gee, I'dlike to take a trip with my
family and visit you know, kindof very innocent, and it was.
I mean, I didn't have anythoughts about any specific
goals other than I wanted to.
(12:16):
I had one goal right I wantedto see, because my father talked
about the factory to the extentthat he said that I mean, I
knew he had that right and Iknew that he lived there and I
wanted to see where he lived.
I wanted to visit the apartmentand you know this is in the book
(12:40):
as well.
It's like it's a three-storybuilding and next to it is an
annex.
That is the manufacturing bookas well.
It's like it's a three-storybuilding and next to it is an
annex.
That is the manufacturing partof it.
But the three-story building,ground floor, are offices,
second floor offices, thirdfloor living quarters.
And the woman who responded tome even says, oh, the president
(13:01):
of the company still sleeps inthe house.
And my daughter says to medidn't, she mean your house?
You know, but like I wanted tosee that, and so and they were
very courteous they were likesure, come visit when would be
good, you know.
And so I planned this trip,where I also reached out to that
(13:26):
mayor.
There's a picture of a mayorand I found out who it was and
it turns out his grandson hasthe same name as him and was the
former communications officerfor the biggest city in the
region of that town, and it waswhere my father was in the
concentration camp in France.
And what I learned is that thatmayor was able to find homes in
(14:02):
this town of 600 people, 600people, 600 people.
They, they hosted close to 2000Jewish refugees, wow, Um.
And it struck me, you know,when I was writing the book.
Um, it was uh, uh, trump's uh,2016 to 2020 term.
(14:26):
It was 2019 when I went and hewas just saying America is full,
you know, no more immigrants,america is full.
And I'm thinking we're sayingAmerica is full and here this
town of 600 people is hosting2,000 refugees, is hosting 2,000
(14:47):
refugees so they don't have tobe in these horrible
concentration camps where,literally, if you went out at
night and you slipped and felland you were elderly and you
fell face forward in the muckyou would drown because you
couldn't get up and you weredrowning in the muck.
So you know, I visited that guy, the grandson of that, who was
(15:17):
unbelievably welcoming.
But when I went to Germany I wasreally hoping to love Ansbach.
You know what I mean, whatlittle my father had talked
about.
It was, you know, a charminglittle town and it's still a
charming little town and Ireally wanted to fall in love
with it.
But there were no markerswhatsoever of Jews ever having
(15:41):
lived there other than of Jewsever having lived there other
than so there's this thing thatthey have in Germany called
Stolperstein, which areliterally called German for
stumbling blocks, and they'rethese little bronze plaques that
you can buy and place in thesidewalk in front of a house
(16:02):
that would say you know, thesepeople who were Jewish, lived
here before, and it's kind of away of marking, of acknowledging
something right, and there'snone of that other than in front
of the factory.
You could see that the cementwas fresh around it.
(16:24):
It was like they hastily.
They were like oh man, theseguys are coming, we've got to
put these in.
Nothing else anywhere in town.
The synagogue is boarded up andthere's just.
I got really angry while I wasthere, just I got really angry
(16:51):
while I was there.
Um, but while we were there, mywife was like Googling and she
said there's some people who'vewritten an article about your
family.
And I was like you know thatcan't be.
And she's like like well, howmany herschkins were there in
anspach who had a silk factory?
And I'm like what and um?
So there are these historiansin wiesbaden, which is another
(17:14):
city north of bavaria in germany, who were doing um articles
about people who were deportedfrom Wiesbaden and, as it turns
out, members of my family, myfather's mother included, went
to Wiesbaden from Ansbach andother parts of Germany because
(17:35):
Wiesbaden was seen as more of aJew-friendly city and they got
deported too.
But the difference in Wiesbadenyou know I talk about this as
well is that there are threedifferent memorials.
(17:57):
There's a very much like theVietnam War memorial type of
thing, sort of long wall withnames of people who were
deported on plaques, and thenthere's a memorial by the train
that was taking people toAuschwitz, the train depot.
(18:21):
And then there's a memorial inthe town hall that rotates
exhibits and they're verypersonal, little vignettes, um,
the, the.
The larger memorials arebreathtaking, literally like I
found myself almost blacking outum, and I couldn't remember my,
(18:43):
my own family's name.
I'm looking at this wall andI'm like what's their name?
Again, it was just too much.
Jamie Serino (18:51):
So your family had this factory and then your
father then was put in aconcentration camp.
So then I'm assuming the Naziparty then took over the factory
at that point.
Yes, okay, and so then?
Michael Hickins (19:09):
Well, actually no.
What happened is that my fatherand his sister had to give
their shares to my aunt'sex-husband my father's sister's
ex-husband who was not Jewish.
Okay my aunt's ex -husband, myfather's sister's ex-husband,
who was not jewish, so okay, andthen the idea the the deal was
(19:30):
after the war they would patchthings up again or whatever,
right, but that it didn't workout that way.
That's part of the plot of thestory, is sort of story, is sort
of what happened to that.
But my father was then leftGermany and was arrested in
(19:51):
Belgium and put in aconcentration camp in France
Because that mayor wasorganizing a way for Jews to get
out of the camp.
My father was able to apply forvisas.
He ended up going to Cuba withhis first wife and their son and
(20:12):
from Cuba he emigrated to theUnited States.
Jamie Serino (20:15):
Okay, how long was he in the concentration camp?
Michael Hickins (20:19):
He was in the concentration camp for about a
year.
Wow, a little under a year.
Okay, and so was he married atthat point?
Let me amend that Because hewas very quickly living with
that mayor.
Paul Mirat was his name, whatwas his name?
(20:42):
And he was able to leave theconcentration camp and live with
Paul Mirat and but they were inMayon for a little under a year
okay and so.
Jamie Serino (21:03):
So then he's in the us.
And now then you know he's, andand you know you don't have to
delve into too much detail,people will read the book.
But now he's like okay, well,how can I get the war's over,
how can I get my factory back?
And he doesn't, he's not ableto get it back.
Michael Hickins (21:28):
Well, I mean, that's part of the mystery
that's lost in the sands of time, but part of it was he didn't
want to go back.
(21:49):
And that's part of you know, ina weird way, the book could just
be a travelogue.
It's the story of me, my wifeand my children traveling
through Europe and learning allthese things about our past, but
it's also about myrelationships to my wife and
children and how they're damagedby my let's call them neuroses.
(22:16):
Um, my anger over seeminglynothing, and discovering just
how much of that anger is aproduct of what happened to my
father and his family, andrealizing that the root of it
(22:42):
isn't even having lost the silkfactory.
I mean, you know, it's weird,because we tend to see pictures
of Holocaust victims as eitherthey're really really old or
they're children.
Those are the pictures that wereceive.
Right, my father was in his 30s, so he had a whole career,
(23:06):
right?
I mean, he'd gone to university, he had built up this factory
that his grandfather had createdand all of a sudden he's got
nothing.
But that's not the fuel of hisanger, anger.
The fuel of his anger is thatthey killed his mother, you know
(23:28):
.
And not only did they kill hismother, but she was killed in a
mass grave, um, no date like andand the nazis.
And you know, one of the thingsthat the historians of Wiesbaden
did was they brought me to thearchive and I saw a lot of
(23:54):
firsthand documentation how muchmoney they're taking from her
account on any given day forwhatever tax reason that they
can invent, including.
You know, they charge her forthe trip to Auschwitz, but they
can't be bothered to write downthe date that they kill her
(24:15):
Because they, you know she's inthe cattle car.
They march them out into theforest, maybe some of them they
gas and some of them they shootin a pit.
We don't know.
Yeah, that's the thing that Irealize drove my father crazy,
and I mean I use the wordadvisedly because in many ways
(24:37):
he was a normal, affable guy.
You know, normal, affable guy.
Peter Carucci (24:49):
But there was always beneath the surface.
Jamie Serino (24:50):
A a fury that I never really understood and that
I I housed in here yeah, yeah,and and that's one of the things
I love about the exploration inthe book is the idea of
intergenerational trauma.
And so your father had to dealwith the trauma of losing his
(25:11):
mother, and then that anger ofhow he lost her, and then now
you're talking about you dealingwith that Without even
realizing what it was.
Yeah, and then you'rediscovering that in this trip.
So there are a lot of peopleout there that deal with that in
a lot of different ways, andthe Holocaust is a huge example
(25:34):
of that.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that intergenerational
trauma?
Michael Hickins (25:41):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because before I
started writing this book I'dnever heard of the term or knew
that that existed.
But we almost genetically passalong significant trauma that we
(26:01):
incur to subsequent generationsand I hope that I've caught it
early enough that I spare my sonthat anger and that
incomprehension about what thatanger is about.
About what that anger is about,I think there's a lot of
(26:27):
resonances for our society inmany ways, whether it's African
Americans or Native Americans orJapanese who were interned,
where we're not very good atmaking amends as a society.
(26:48):
And one of the things I foundand the reason I was talking
about Wiesbaden and thememorials is because, you know,
the feeling I had in Wiesbadenwas 180 degrees out from what I
had in Ansbach, where in onecity there was absolutely no
acknowledgement of anything atall and I was beside myself with
(27:14):
fury, and in Wiesbaden, wherethey seemed to bend over
backwards to acknowledge whathappened and to try to make
amends in some small way, and itwas very meaningful to me.
Um and so.
So I think that the converse ofthe generational trauma is like
okay, so what do we do aboutthat?
Because we don't need to livewith that right.
(27:37):
We can.
Peter Carucci (27:38):
we can fix that yeah, it seems that in your
desire to seek any kind ofhealing through acknowledgement
of the wrong helped some degreeof cognizance for you that it
(27:59):
can be okay, that you can startto heal, whereas in Ausbach the
fact there's nothing there atleast when I was reading that
you were so fuming about it,it's still.
You know.
I wonder what society can do tobegin or not to begin to
(28:21):
actually help fully.
I mean, will we ever heal fromthis you?
know, I don't know, I just saida lot of stuff there, but I was
really fascinated by your desirefor acknowledgement of what
happened in this.
Alsbach.
They did not, and WeissbWiesbaden.
Michael Hickins (28:45):
Yeah, ansbach and Wiesbaden, you're doing a
good job there.
Peter Carucci (28:50):
It began to heal you a little.
At least I read that.
I felt that you know what Imean.
Even still in Wiesbaden you'restill like it's just a little
bit.
You know what it means I mean.
Michael Hickins (29:04):
Wiesbaden was good, and then going to Mayon
and realizing, you know, meetingthe grandson of that mayor and
the incredible humanity that hedisplays yeah, and yeah, there
(29:24):
are some pretty interestingphotographs in that book as well
the humanity that that thatthey displayed is as much a
healing agent as anything youknow.
(29:45):
I also, you know, you broughtup Blomqvist and I'm like what
is the commonality between SilkFactory and Blomqvist?
And in both there's kind of thequestion of faith, right, and
in both there's kind of thequestion of faith, right,
(30:07):
because Blomqvist, the narrator,is bereft, because his
religious tradition has beendestroyed, right, the Norse gods
have been vanquished byChristendom, have been
vanquished by Christendom.
And so he's, and because it'san epic adventure, they're
(30:32):
running into all these differentpeople with these different
faiths and he's trying to findone that corresponds to his
personal belief system orsomething right, yeah, something
(30:53):
right.
Um, and my father, um, had, umhad been very religious at one
point in his life, um, but whenI was growing up he wasn't at
all.
We didn't, you know, we didn't.
You know we didn't keep kosher,we didn't keep the Sabbath.
There was, you know, the highholidays high holidays we
(31:18):
observed, and Hanukkah, for mysake, and Passover, but that was
basically it.
And you know he died when I wasvery young, so I was 15.
So we never had a chance toreally have those conversations
(31:40):
like you know, dad, why did youstop being a practicing Jew?
Um, uh and and and, um.
You know, again, it comes downto what happened to his mother.
(32:02):
What happened to his mother,you know, it's something I felt
on top of, like even more thanthe material goods that were
taken from him, and even youknow more than his livelihood
(32:27):
and his homeland and where hegrew up.
And I mean, just think abouthow attached we are to where we
live, patriotism aside, right, Imean we grow up somewhere and
it's part of who we are, and allof a sudden that's ripped away
and we take it for grantedbecause we're americans.
That well, you know.
At least he came to america agreat place to be right.
(32:47):
Everyone wants to come toamerica, not necessarily right.
Some people were very happywhere they were, or thought they
were, um, but on top of that,you know, they killed his mother
, and God let that happen.
(33:17):
And that is the thing I thinkthat you know they took the
Nazis, took his faith away, andto me that's almost.
I don't know if it's almostworse, but it's, you know, and I
don't know for sure, but ifthat's the case, that's really
tragic Because at some point itwas important to him.
Jamie Serino (33:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean so much there that he had to
carry, to carry.
So you brought up so much, likeyou know, physically removed
from where he was living, right,Killing his mother, taking away
his career, his livelihood, hiswhole identity, and not being
in control of any of that.
You end up somewhere okay,maybe ended up in an okay place,
(33:55):
but not being in control of anyof that and having that
identity shift on a lot oflevels just very sudden and
being put in a concentrationcamp.
There's so much that he had tocarry and you talked about, you
know, getting back to theintergenerational trauma, you
know what you were referring toI think might be called
(34:15):
epigenetics, where you canactually pass biologically that
trauma along, and they actuallyuse the Holocaust to prove that
and they used Holocaustsurvivors to prove the concept
of epigenetics, that it doesexist, and you were talking
about being worried aboutpassing that along to your son.
So how did the trip and theexperience and now post-trip,
(34:41):
how did that affect yourrelationship with your son?
How do you feel about that now,about him and about passing
along that trauma?
Michael Hickins (34:53):
Well, you know it's interesting to me that I've
been married to non-Jews, andyou know my family.
They were all Jewish, jewishand I was told from an early age
(35:17):
that it was important to marrya Jewish woman because otherwise
that would become a thing and Idon't know whether on some
level, consciously orgenetically, I wanted to
(35:42):
diversify my own gene pool.
I know that as a father, itbecame really important to me to
become more self-aware and tochange my behavior and to be
(36:15):
less like my father, in certainways Consciously.
Yeah, I mean it's funny becausemy dad used to say to me when
he would get really mad at me,for whatever reason, he would
say my father would have slappedme, which was terrifying
because occasionally he would spslapped me, which was
(36:36):
terrifying because occasionallyhe would spank.
He would spank me and on oneoccasion did slap me.
But you know I've never youknow we don't spank Max.
But there's an episode in thebook that I won't spoil.
(36:56):
But I've tried to consciouslymitigate that with Max and I
hope that I'm not passing thattrauma along to him.
But you know, he was three whenwe went on that trip, so a lot
(37:25):
went on in his life before that.
But you know, it's interestingwhen we were in the factory.
So we get this tour of thefactory and it's me and Carol
and my older son Catfish and Maxin the stroller.
(37:48):
As we're getting the tour andas it becomes clear that the guy
who's the, so the tour is givento me by the current CEO of the
company and I'm getting angrierand angrier at him for reasons
that I'll leave for the readersto discover.
(38:09):
But as I'm getting angrier, maxis getting fussier and fussier
in his stroller, to the pointwhere Carol has to leave with
him so that we can finish thetour without this.
You know, squalling kid,basically driving everybody
crazy.
Um, and you know, I found itinteresting that without I mean
(38:36):
he was three without knowing,without knowing anything or
understanding anything aboutwhat was going on, he could just
feel it, he could feel the, thevibe.
Jamie Serino (38:50):
And um, yeah, so you know yeah, and so another
thing I wanted to kind of returnto is I mean, I think it's
wonderful that you know you'vewritten this book.
It's a memoir.
It's a memoir, but you're alsosort of documenting something
here, and anytime something canget documented about the
(39:10):
Holocaust I'm happy aboutbecause, as we know, there are
people out there actively tryingto say that it didn't happen,
right, so anytime you can sortof plant the flag and say here's
more evidence that it happened.
And you touched upon that withone town saying it happened and
another town not reallyacknowledging it.
(39:32):
You know, and you know you tryto look at it in both ways, like
the German people.
When I speak to people fromGermany, some of them do have
tremendous guilt about it andthey want to move on, not
necessarily be reminded about itall the time, and then some
feel that it should beacknowledged, you know.
And then you have people sayingit didn't happen.
And then you know you have.
So my grandfather was in WorldWar II II and he was one of the
(39:55):
people who liberated Dachau andhe had those stories and I have
some documentation and stuff,and so I think it's great that
you've written this memoir.
You've sort of planted anotherflag, like this happened.
Can you talk a little bit moreabout that?
You did talk a little bit aboutit in terms of comparing the
two towns, but anything else inyour experience where now you
(40:20):
feel like I have this sort ofevidence and there are people
out there trying to say itdidn't happen.
What are some thoughts aboutthat?
Michael Hickins (40:29):
It's interesting that you should say
that, because the box had a lotof things, um, when I started to
really look at it, a lot ofartifacts, historical artifacts
like um, um, well, I can't nowthink of the word in English, I
(40:56):
know it in French because it'sin French.
It's a document basically set,it's like a hall pass for
checkpoints, and basically thereare these.
Some of them are written inpencil on the back of a scrap of
paper, basically signed by ayou know notable, saying you
(41:19):
know, this person is allowed togo to this place at this
particular time.
There are, you know, rationcards, there are a lot of
documents that help place thoseevents in a particular time, and
(41:43):
a very good friend who lives inFrance, who's French, he read
my book and we met up for lunchone day.
I was visiting about a yearafter the book came out and he
said you missed a really greatopportunity to really go in
(42:06):
depth and talk about each one ofthose artifacts.
And I was like, well, I didn'twant to slow the narrative down.
And he's like, well, you shouldblog about it.
So I did.
For about a year I wrote adifferent piece about a
(42:29):
particular artifact, whether itwas like something to do with a
letter from the prefect sayingthat my father's wife was not
allowed to travel from theconcentration camp to the house
where they were living in Mayon.
She had to go back.
(42:50):
Her father could stay, so theywould just.
And I would write about exactlywhat the piece was.
And you know I took a pictureof it and included it in the
post and I mean there's morethan can fit in a narrative, in
a memoir, and particularly, youknow you want it to be readable.
(43:12):
I mean I wrote it so that peoplewould read it, so I didn't slow
the narrative down every timethere was a piece of
documentation to really.
But there are pictures of someof them.
But my publisher also was like,you know, people like photos
but they don't like pictures ofdocuments.
So there aren't as manydocuments there, but easy enough
to find my blog.
(43:33):
But it is but easy enough tofind my blog.
But it was part of what Iwanted to do was to counter the
narrative of denial.
You know, yeah, withoutexplicitly saying hey, deniers
are full of it but just tobasically say you can't deny
(43:56):
this because I've seen itexactly.
Peter Carucci (43:57):
you know, I'm really glad to hear you say this
, having known you for a while,because when I read that in the
book your kind of self-discoveryjourney in your mother's box, I
remember feeling kind of like Iwas there in that room as
you're discovering it all andand trying to figure out what
(44:17):
happens, and I can't wait to seeor check out your blog now.
You know that's really greatbecause it's not only just you
know your father's trauma, butalso how your mother handled it,
how you handled her not openingto you all those years that she
(44:37):
must have known stuff.
And as I was, I rememberthinking, wait, what you know,
what you know like.
And you that's because you'revoicing like how could she not
have said this to?
me and especially because I knowwe talk often we're both
history freaks like yourprevious book dove into
literally the 12th centuryspecific historiographical stuff
(45:01):
.
Get it right for crying out loud1057, I know, you know, I know,
and then, but to find out thatin your own life that history
part was kind of missing in away, I thought was really very
powerful, especially, you know.
(45:23):
And also I have a secondquestion for you.
That's really bizarre andseemingly trivial, but I think
it does speak to some of thatlack of self-history that I
think you discovered, kind ofgiving yourself your own
opportunity to rediscoveryourself.
Second to that which I wouldlove for you to talk about, that
(45:45):
kind of history and yourpersonal history is I remember
that you named your son in thebook Thurman and I remember the
reason.
Why.
Is that okay to break this?
Can you explain that to us?
Michael Hickins (46:01):
Well, yeah, so my older son's name is Catfish
and the reason I named himCatfish in real life is because,
while I was living in France,his mother was French.
Our relationship was doomedfrom the beginning, so I wanted
(46:23):
to make sure that he hadsomething indelibly American
about him and, as a lifelongYankees fan, I was just.
Catfish Hunter was a favoriteof mine Not my favorite, but one
of my favorites, and the reasonI say not.
(46:45):
And so I convinced his motherthat.
So I'm a Taurus not that I'mreally into astrology, but I'm a
Taurus.
She's a Pisces.
Catfish is, as everyone knows,like amphibian right Can live
outside the water, bottom feeder, one of the oldest species on
earth, a survivor.
So I convinced her that thiswas a good name because of that.
(47:06):
And yeah, he's also a baseballplayer.
But really, you know this rightand she bought into it.
My favorite baseball player ofall time is Thurman Munson, but
the French cannot pronounce theTH, so he would have been
Thurman.
See, they call him Kekfiche,right?
(47:27):
Fortunately he's a big, strongkid, never really had to worry
too much about being teasedabout it, um, but they pronounce
it correctly pretty much.
But Thurman would have beenlike torture, it would have been
like condemning him to alifetime of no one ever being
able to pronounce his name.
(47:48):
So I didn't name him Thurmanafter Thurman Munson.
But when he you know, when heasked me to change his name in
the book, I changed it toThurman and I added in how
difficult it was for the Frenchto pronounce, which is probably
(48:11):
the only invented part of thebook, but it compensates for the
fact that there's a sectionthat I had to take out where he
talked about how at one pointyou know as a grownup someone in
a bar said to him were yourparents like drunk when they
named you?
And he had to resist thetemptation to beat them to a
bloody pulp, um and um.
(48:31):
And since I had to change that,I changed it somewhat to be
Thurman.
Did I answer your question,peter?
Peter Carucci (48:39):
Yes, I love that.
I love that Especially.
You know he was my favoriteplayer when I was a little kid.
I'm a Mets fan, loving ThurmanMunson and my baseball card
collection, all that.
So now all right.
So now that's cool.
Now, the history that you findyourself uncovering as you're
(49:02):
going through this helps you.
Did it help you heal?
Michael Hickins (49:10):
I think so.
I mean, it's not so much thatit helped me heal, which I think
it did.
It helped me heal which I thinkit did.
It helped me get more in touchwith the roots of my behavior in
(49:31):
a way that allowed me to changeit, because it's one thing to
understand something on anintellectual level and it's
another to allow it to permeateyou in a way that allows you to.
Actually, because no one goesin.
I didn't go into a situationbeing like gosh, darn it, I'm
(49:52):
going to lose my temper rightnow.
You know what?
In about a half hour, I think Ishould lose my temper.
That's not how it works, right?
Like you're going todoop-de-doop-de-doop, bam, you
lose your temper.
Like you poof and to learn whatis underlying your own psyche,
(50:14):
in a way that an insignificantincident can cause you to lose
your temper.
I find that I'm losing mytemper much more rarely.
Let's say, I haven't achievedperfect equanimity yet, but I'm
(50:35):
getting there.
You know, perfect equanimityyet, but getting there, yeah.
Jamie Serino (50:38):
So so the the trip and the experience seemed to
like resolve certain things,that that you, that were
bothering you, I guess, and someof which it seems you knew and
maybe some of which you didn'tquite know.
So it was certainly therapeutic, but I guess you know if you
have any advice for people thatyou think may have
(51:02):
intergenerational trauma or justsomething that's unresolved for
them, besides telling them totake a trip to Germany or
something like that, like, doyou have any other advice for
for someone to you know, have atherapeutic experience like the
way you did?
Michael Hickins (51:16):
You know, I did one thing Towards the end of
her life.
My mom came to live with us andI probed her with questions and
I recorded them.
I recorded her answers and Irecorded them.
(51:37):
I recorded her answers and Iwould urge anybody who's got any
relatives who are still alivewho experienced the Holocaust in
any way, even if they were kidsat the time, ask them about it
and record it.
And the reason I say record itis because a lot of what my
(51:59):
mother said I didn't hear,because the previous thing she
said was so shocking that I wasstill processing it while she
kept talking, and if I hadn'trecorded it I wouldn't have
heard the next part.
It's like I'm lucky because Ialso I'm a writer.
I wrote a book, I had thisrecording that I could kind of
(52:22):
refer to, not about anythingspecifically, um, related to my
father, but in her ownexperiences, right.
so yeah um, um, because shehappened to live in france too
during the war, right, so sothere was, there were, there
(52:43):
were layers to this, but, um,having access to that, I would
say you know absolutely, really,whether you're a writer or not.
Record those conversationsbecause, um, you're sure to
capture what is said and hear itagain.
And if you're a Holocaustsurvivor, tell someone, tell
(53:04):
your family you know, talk aboutit, overcome the reticence and
what I think for a lot of peopleis the survivor's guilt.
Right, get over that, becauseotherwise what you're doing is
you're just passing it along andpeople aren't understanding
what's at the root of it.
Jamie Serino (53:23):
Wow, yeah, that's really powerful and that's great
advice.
I think that's a pretty strongway, maybe to conclude here Is
there anything else that you'dwant to add, anything else you'd
want people to know?
And, peter, if you have anyother questions, as we look to
conclude here Is there anythingelse that you'd want to add,
anything else you'd want peopleto know?
Peter Carucci (53:37):
And, peter, if you have any other questions, as
we look to conclude, I justwant to say I'm really grateful
for the opportunity to have thisdiscussion with you.
It's really cool.
You know we call this.
There's a lesson in heresomewhere and really like there
are so many lessons just in here, you know.
Michael Hickins (53:58):
We're just really grateful you were able to
join us.
Well, I'm really grateful toyou guys for hosting me and
asking me some thoughtfulquestions, and I just have to
say that there's a lot ofinternal conflict involved in
sort of approaching this, thistopic.
(54:18):
I mean, this is something thatwe, you know, we, we we barely
touched on, for instance, whichis the whole, the whole concept
of financial remuneration.
Um and there's a guilt elementto that as well, which is, like,
you know, um, am I just tryingto, you know, get my hands on
some reparations?
What you know?
(54:38):
Is that wrong?
And you know so, and I thinkit's.
I think that my own case inpart, I do feel that reparations
are important Because that'sthe way we acknowledge things.
(55:00):
You know, it's like in the goback to the, to the bible.
You know, it's like, um, thereason that, uh, the jewish
bible has these sort of veryspecific laws about.
You know, um, if you know youaccidentally kill your
brother-in-law, then you have toprovide this and that to.
It's because before that, itwas chaos and there was blood
(55:25):
feuds, and these people camealong and said, no, look, we're
going to quantify this.
It's like, okay, it doesn'tmake up for your emotional loss,
but it makes up for your, youknow, loss of income, for lack
of a better word but we.
It's a way to acknowledge whathappened and own own the
(55:47):
behavior yeah exactly, and it isa way of it is a way, it is a
way that you can atone right asthe perpetrator.
So I say that because, you know, as Americans and I said this
earlier we're not very good atthis, but it's like, and it's
being discussed now.
You know what?
What does the United States oweAfrican Americans?
(56:11):
And you know, I don't know whatthe answer is, but I know the
answer is there's, it'ssomething.
And until there's thatacknowledgement and I can speak
from personal experience aboutthat just acknowledging that a
wrong was committed and beingwilling to put a value on that
(56:34):
goes a long way towards healingwounds that have not healed in
over 100 years.
Jamie Serino (56:40):
Yeah, yeah, putting a value on it, that's a
good phrase, all right, well,michael, thanks again and thanks
everybody for joining us.
Michael Hickins, the SilkFactory.
Google that Check out Michael'sblog as well for all those
things in the box A lot of stuffand a lot of other books from
(57:01):
Michael that you can explore, socheck them out.
All right, Michael.
Michael Hickins (57:05):
Thanks very much.
Jamie Serino (57:06):
I look forward to seeing you again, all right.
Michael Hickins (57:08):
All right, take care.
Jamie Serino (57:10):
Bye,
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