Jul 10, 2025
Willie Handler is a child of two Holocaust survivors and has inherited not only their trauma but also their resilience. That resilience helped him battle through life’s challenges.
Willie Handler has reinvented himself on several occasions throughout his work career. He has been a hospital administrator, a government policy manager, an insurance expert, and a consultant. Following his retirement from the government, Willie began a writing career.
Growing antisemitism and Holocaust denial motivated Willie to research and write about his family’s story during the Holocaust and the impact it had on him.
Willie has published three satirical fiction novels over the past few years. His latest book is a memoir focusing on growing up as a child of Holocaust survivors. He is currently working on a book dealing with generational trauma in descendants of Holocaust survivors.
In light of what is happening in the world, this interview with Willie is timely and enlightening.
Growing up, the author and his family constantly lived under the shadow of the Holocaust. There was persistent tension at home. He was frequently told: “Finish your dinner. We didn’t have food like this in the camps.”
His parents only provided bits and pieces of their Holocaust experiences since he “didn’t need to know.” A few years ago, Willie Handler decided that he did need to know. Thus began a journey into his family’s past, eventually revealing their extraordinary survival and the painful losses that came with it. Their stories reflect not only the evil that swept Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but also the resilience of the human spirit.
His parents appeared to have taken some shocking secrets to their graves, forcing the author to view them in a different light. With the acknowledgement of his own buried trauma, and following years of research, he has finally stepped out of the shadows.