Genealogy
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Helping Future Peacemakers Understand the Past. A True Story Tells it Best.
by Joanie Schirm on November 4, 2015 PermalinkFrom the moment I read the last letter that my grandfather Arnošt wrote to my dad, I knew it held meaning beyond the four walls of my writing room. Dated April 21, 1942, just three days before Arnošt and my grandmother Olga Holzer were taken from Prague on a Nazi transport to their deaths, the
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Lesson Plans from Life – Making it Matter
by Joanie Schirm on August 18, 2015 PermalinkLESSON PLANS FROM LIFE – MAKING IT MATTERFrom: Joanie Holzer Schirm, Orlando Author: Adventurers Against Their Will (AATW) Lesson Plan: www.joanieschirm.local/teachers “Hopefully, education and knowledge of history linked together with pure compassion and humanity will let us recognize the origins of old-new dangers and tie down the demons of hatred and evil before they grow
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Earned Title: Author
by Joanie Schirm on January 12, 2015 PermalinkEarned Title: Author Seven years ago, January 11, 2008, I sold my Orlando engineering company. Having left behind the lofty title of President, I entered my next life chapter with a goal: Published Author. It was a position title I had to earn. Befuddled as to how to describe my new endeavor, my husband Roger
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“Shout for Freedom”
by Joanie Schirm on November 20, 2014 Permalink“Shout for Freedom” A memory from the Velvet Revolution – Twenty-Five years ago – Czechoslovakia, November, 1989 I have a memory that embodies the emotions I felt when my dad’s native land, Czechoslovakia, recovered their freedom. After forty-one years of communist rule, in what is now known as the “Velvet Revolution,” a brave country shouted
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“Man who nabbed most dangerous man in Europe dies” …
by Joanie Schirm on October 2, 2014 Permalinkhttp://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/30222106-418/paul-kraus-wwii-gi-who-nabbed-most-dangerous-man-in-europe-dies-at-95.html Imagine meeting someone through their seventy year-old letters – not addressed to you but to your father- who by the time you read the letters had passed away. Through the letter writer’s own intimate 1940’s words, you meet this person as a young man; a refugee from Nazi-occupied Prague in Shanghai, China.
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What’s up for your next path in life?
by Joanie Schirm on August 23, 2014 PermalinkWhat’s up for your next path in life? As an author who started to write books after six decades of ‘not’ writing books, I’m a good example to think about when you want to step off the sidewalk, turn a new corner, and follow your dreams. I’m proof that each day offers the opportunity to
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Fateful Choice – August 1940
by Joanie Schirm on August 10, 2014 PermalinkFateful Choice – August 10, 1940 Czech refugee Osvald “Valdik” Holzer writes from Peking (Beijing) on August 20, 1940 to refugee friend Rudolf “Rudla” Rebhun in Shanghai. Valdik has unexpectedly been forced to leave his position as head physician at the American Brethren Hospital in Ping Ting Hsien, Shansi (Shanxi) Province in the Northern Central
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“Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.”
by Joanie Schirm on May 24, 2014 PermalinkRecently, I was a guest author at a local book club. The 13 attendees all had read Adventurers Against Their Will and came with questions and compliments that once again reminded me why I’m doing what I’m doing in this second chapter of my life. Clearly resonating with readers is the humanizing of history through