1939, Southern Poland. Dina was a young Jewish woman. She anticipated getting married and raising a family in the same small town where she had grown up.

War broke her life. But it would not break her.

Dina endured years of suffering in Auschwitz concentration camp, then more years of homelessness after the war. She finally settled in America where, after finally raising that family, she dedicated her life to sharing her story with young people.

I was one of them.

Made of Iron is a memoir about my journey to tell the story of a woman who lived a remarkable life of hardship and struggle, yet unwaveringly relived her past again and again. Her mission in life was to share her experience of the past to create a better future. That mission became mine, and I spent the past 11 years writing this book.

Dina impacted the lives of thousands of people in the Southern Tier of New York State over decades of speaking. She has already been the subject of a documentary and a song. Now her story is in print for you to read.

I hope you find Dina’s story as inspiring as I do. Enjoy this sample! Stay tuned for release day on 8/19/24!

Spring 1998

Stepping into the lecture hall of my high school filled me with a sense of
reverence and awe. Ordinary classes on ordinary days took place in ordinary
rooms, but the lecture hall was for special events. As a freshman, I had never
been inside. I scanned the banked rows of hard-backed plastic seats and the
laminated tables that curved in a semicircle around the lighted stage. A pair
of chairs sat in the middle of the stage. One, I knew, was for my teacher; the
other was for the guest—the guest for this special event.

I took a seat in the second row. I didn’t dare sit in the back row. People
who sit in the back row send a certain message to the speaker. I also didn’t
sit in the front. That was too close. I was, and will always be, a sit-in-the-second-row type of person. I set my overloaded backpack down by a seat,then plunked myself down. The seat swiveled. How fancy! How collegiate!

I could hear the squeaks and groans of all of the other seats in the hall. My
classmate who sat next to me commented about how we should have class
here every day. I smiled and agreed. It’s just a thing to say.

Recently, in history class, we finished a unit about the Holocaust and
genocide. It was the first time I learned about these topics, and as always, I
studied and did well on the test. Our teacher, Mr. Adessa, invited this guest
speaker to give us a better understanding of the material. Since I had already
gotten an A on the test, I did not see how much better understanding I could
have, but I welcomed any assembly that broke up the monotony of the school
day. I was 15 years old.

Mr. Adessa stepped onto the stage. He was tall, over six feet with a military
bearing that made him seem taller still. Mustachioed, hair swept back, he was
a man who rarely smiled, I had come to recognize him as a teacher who was tough and demanding and expected more of his students than they realized they could handle. A teacher who would give a B+ to an A student, so the student worked harder to realize what an A requires. Me.

He welcomed us and invited us to sit and pay attention. His students
obeyed.

“I have with me here an important guest to our school. She is also a dear
friend of mine. In class, you have learned about the Holocaust. You have
heard of the Auschwitz concentration camp. You have learned a little bit
about what happened to those who survived. I want to introduce you to my
friend, Dina. She lives in Elmira, about an hour from here. She has a family
there and has lived here in upstate New York for almost 50 years. But before
that, she grew up in Poland and—well, I will let her tell her story.”

He escorted a woman to the chairs on the stage. He stooped down to
offer an arm, though she did not need it. This woman could not have been
more than five feet tall, with curly white hair and piercing eyes. She seemed
old, the age of my grandparents, but she moved with a sense of strength and
surety that made her seem like she could live forever. She sat in one chair.
Mr. Adessa took the other.

“Thank you,” she said, and I immediately heard the Eastern European
accent. She faced the audience. “My name is Dina Jacobson, and I was in
Auschwitz concentration camp.”

I listened, silent and respectful, as Dina spent the next hour telling us about
her life. She told us a few details about growing up on a farm in Poland. She
told us about Nazis coming to her hometown and taking her family away,
then eventually taking her. Much of her talk consisted of stories about her
years in Auschwitz. She told about the abuse she suffered at the hands of
guards, about living off of no more than a cup of ersatz coffee and a thin
slice of bread each day. She rolled up her sleeve and showed us her forearm,
where a number was written in blue ink. I couldn’t see the number clearly,
as I was two rows back. Mr. Adessa told us that if we want to come up and
see the tattoo up close at the end of the talk, we will have an opportunity. I
already knew I would not. That would be too close.

Dina finished her talk by telling us a little about liberation from the camp,
and about living in Elmira. Then she took questions, and students wanted
to know more about the concentration camps. They wanted details. They
wanted to know how terrible it was, and Dina did her best to explain. I asked
no questions. I was moved, though not to tears, like some of my classmates. I
assumed that this talk, like most educational experiences, will settle into my
memory and stay there. I assumed that between the unit in history class and
the presentation that day, I learned most of what I needed to know about the
Holocaust. I assumed my relationship with Dina would end after the talk,
and my relationship with my history teacher would end in June.

About all of these assumptions, I was completely wrong.