Welcome!

Thanks for visiting my website. Click on the subjects that are of interest to you. If you would like to read the first story from the collection, Black Grass, click on the Golem of Auschwitz.Some of the stories in this collection have been translated into Chinese and Russian and all can be read and downloaded free of charge. This site also contains a selection of my poems -- click on the Poetry link to view.

In addition, this site have some of the collected poems of my mother Dina Otterman. She learned to write and speak in English when she was in her middle forties. In spite of this I think you will find her work very meaningful.

I'm interested in your assessment of the collection or of any individual piece of writing. please it to me.

Books are available for sale at the discounted price of $19.95 which includes shipping. Please email your purchase request to me. For larger orders click here.

For viewing the reading of stories click here.

THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD

Thu. Apr 24, 2008

“Black Grass”
By Bernard Otterman
Jewish Heritage Project, 143 pages, Was $24.95 Order Now $19.95

In “Golem of Auschwitz,” the first tale in Bernard Otterman’s second collection of stories, the narrator, imprisoned in a concentration camp, asks himself whether escape might be possible through the conjuring of a supernatural creature. “Things were taking place every day in Auschwitz that no one had considered possible,” he reasons. “Why not a golem?”

The narrator’s question is also Otterman’s. Facing the notoriously difficult task of representing the Holocaust and its aftermath, the author creates fantastical situations that parallel the surrealism of the Shoah itself. In the book’s title story, “Black Grass,” a rural Eastern European town is besieged by a mysterious plague that spreads outward from the spot where a concentration camp once stood; in “Lotto Fever,” a Holocaust survivor living in New York intuits correctly that the number tattooed on his arm will appear on the day’s winning lotto ticket. Otterman, who survived the Holocaust as a child, sometimes veers into heavy-handed territory; the first story, for instance, concludes with the golem responsible for Israel’s independence. But Otterman’s willingness to engage creatively with the metaphysical questions raised by the Holocaust should be applauded.

— Marissa Brostoff

1. What motivated you to write “Black Grass”?
2. What inspired you to write the Golem of Auschwitz story?
3. Why did you write a collection of fictional stories instead of a memoir of your Holocaust experiences?
4. What inspired you to write “Lego Lager” which is a story of a German boy learning about the Holocaust and coming to grips with his family’s involvement with it?

Q. What motivated you to write “Black Grass”?

A. “Black Grass” was the first complete short story that I wrote in Phase II of my writing career. Back in the middle seventies there had been a Phase I. Anyway, Phase II started with the writing of poems. I took a class at the New School and followed it by private tutoring. Then, many, but not all, of my poems dealt with the Holocaust. One day the phrase black grass popped into my head. I thought that phrase was interesting and I tried to discover its meaning by writing a poem. But after a number of tries I was still unable to compose a poem which had closure. However, during the process a number of ideas revealed themselves. It then occurred to me that most of these ideas could be expressed in a short story. And, indeed, after a number of attempts a story coalesced. With respect to the Holocaust, one of my greatest fears is that the murder of six million of European Jews will be forgotten. Worse yet, that this genocide will be ignored and that other genocides will be will be perpetrated on other minorities because of their ethnicity, race, or religion. This concern, perhaps even anger, that anti-Semitism remains as a potent force assumed center stage in “Black Grass”. It was written to show the futility of trying to ignore the Holocaust, especially in Eastern European countries, in which most, but not all, of the extermination took place.

Q. What inspired you to write the Golem of Auschwitz story?

A. Myths have tremendous sway over our imaginations. In the Jewish tradition, the golem myth has been around since the sixteenth century. In its original form it told the story of a Rabbi Loew of Prague who using a Kabalistic formula created a giant man made from clay – a golem- in order to save the Jewish community from a pogrom. When I was writing these stories I came across this legend and asked myself if this myth could be updated to include the Holocaust. Specifically, would it be possible to create a golem in the black hole of death called, Auschwitz. And once created, what could the golem accomplish which would be consistent with the historical record of that death camp, as well as with the Talmudic tradition of golem creation. As you have read, the answer in the affirmative provided one carries forward the Jewish tradition as presented in the Kabalah and develops characters which are authentic.

Q. Why did you write a collection of fictional stories instead of a memoir of your Holocaust experiences?

A. As a child Holocaust survivor I owe my life to the foresight, courage, and perseverance of my mother, Dina and my father, David. During the war, my mother was definitely the initiator, the take charge person. And most of the situation in which life or death hung on the balance involved my mother and me. She took it upon herself to be my protector and savior. In spite of that, there are many reasons why I chose not to write a memoir of these events. The main being that I prefer creative fiction to memoir. Besides there are literally hundreds of very good Holocaust memoirs. Among the best are those by Elie Wiesel and Privo Levi. My literary talents are such, and I needed to present my stories in a different way. The reality is that German treatment of Jews, captured Russian prisoners of war, gypsies, and homosexuals in their shear scope and specific execution are surreal. Paradoxically, presenting these events in the tradition of magical realism makes them more real.

Q. What inspired you to write “Lego Lager” which is a story of a German boy learning about the Holocaust and coming to grips with his family’s involvement with it?

A. I had written a story whose title is “Days of Rage”, which is also included in the book. In this story a Jewish teenager, the son of Holocaust survivors, who slowly and painfully learns what happened to his parents during the war. I thought it would be interesting to write a story in which a German boy born after World War II learns what happened before and during the Holocaust in the town of his parents, and what had been his family’s involvement in the Holocaust. In this connection, I read a book which describes the life in a small German town from 1932 to 1942. I don’t remember the name of the book, but it was written by an American historian who in the seventies went to this town studied the archives, talked to the people, etc. Once again, I wanted to use actual historical data as the background in the story. I wrote a story in which the boy’s grandparents had to be involved with the town’s Nazi Party and the boy wanted to know the extent of that involvement. After a while it became clear to me that the boy needed something concrete to understand what took place during the Holocaust and with this artifact confront his parents with the reality of a death camp. The break through came when I got the idea that the boy could achieve his objectives by building a death camp using lego blocks.