Overview

Echoes of Exile reveals the seismic disruptions of twentieth-century European history through the intimate lens of one family's struggle to survive. Setting out to record the life of her mother, Ruth, Daniela Spenser unearthed personal facts and stories that additionally illuminate the shared traumas and experiences of millions of Czech, Polish, and German Jews who died in the Holocaust, as well as the stories of those who survived and lived under Communism and the Cold War. Her resulting work is a fascinating hybrid that combines family letters and interviews with deeply researched political history spanning from the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Spenser's fascinating work reveals the difficult choices her mother and family faced, the tests to their loves and loyalties, and the lingering scars of exile. Spenser recovers fragments of the past that contribute to a map of the present and possibilities for the future. An engrossing account of survival, resilience, and the enduring human spirit amid the maelstrom of Europe's savage twentieth century, Echoes of Exile will interest listeners who value firsthand accounts of significant events and who seek to understand the complexities of survival, identity, and political change through intimate, lived experiences.

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Daniela Spenser is a fellow at CIESAS (Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social) in Mexico City. She is author of The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s and Stumbling Its Way Through Mexico: The Early Years of the Communist International. Sharon Freedman is an actor, narrator, producer, and international arts educator. Her acting credits include Just Beyond (Disney+), Chicago Med (NBC), Henry Danger (Nickelodeon), Cold Winter's Night (Emmy Award winner), It's Your Birfday (with Keith David), Ladies Room (official selection of Slamdance), and The Ski Trip (LOGO Network). She won a Scenie Award for best actress in a comedy for her lead role in Ensemble Studio Theater/LA's Pigs and Chickens. She's done commercials and voice-overs for everything from A&E to Volkswagen and has narrated books for PRH, Tantor, Findaway, Pink Flamingo, and Scholastic. She is the executive producer of Tisch Represents an organization dedicated to creating opportunities for under-represented voices in the television industry. She was cocreator and company manager of the play development organization The 24Seven Lab in NYC for seven years, where she developed work by writers including: Pulitzer winner Annie Baker, Tony nominee Lucas Hnath, Macarthur genius grant winner Sam Hunter, WGA award nominee Ron Fitzgerald, and Emmy nominee Cusi Cram. She was a resident teaching artist with B.R.I.D.G.E. Theatre Project, has taught internationally in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo, and is currently at teaching artist at California State Prison. A member of the Obie Award-winning Partial Comfort Productions (NY), EST/LA, and an associate member of Sacred Fools, Sharon is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Playwrights Horizons Theatre School.

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