Pauline Steinhorn
Introduction by Menachem Rosensaft
Bronia Feldman never imagined she would become the backbone of an underground medical lifeline, least of all inside the brutal forced-labor system of the HASAG munitions factory in occupied Poland. Torn from her family in September 1942, she arrives there, shattered by grief. The only force strong enough to keep her alive is the chance to save others.
Left behind in the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna are her husband and two young daughters. Her 13-year-old daughter, Hajuta, has been sent to a nearby labor site. Bronia seizes a rare opportunity to escape and manages to reach her daughter. After their brief reunion, she faces an impossible choice: flee into the forest to join the partisans, or slip back to the place she has just escaped.
When they are reunited months later, the moment is both miraculous and heartbreaking. Hajuta is no longer the girl Bronia remembers. Together they endure still darker days when they are deported to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945.
This true story of a Jewish mother and daughter is a testament to courage, devotion, and the fragile thread of hope that sustained them. Amid cruelty and terror, they also encounter moments of humanity.
Throughout it all, both cling to memories of the River Kamienna, where they once danced, played music, and believed in a future. For Bronia and Hajuta, the river is more than a memory. It is a promise that they might one day return home.
Dreaming of the River will be published by Amsterdam Publishers on April 13, 2026. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or through your local bookstore.
About Pauline Steinhorn
Throughout her career as an award-winning filmmaker and writer, Pauline wrote and directed documentaries for PBS, Maryland Public Television, Sesame Street, Discovery Channel, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Smithsonian. Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Moment magazine.
Dreaming of the River is based on the journals of Pauline's mother and grandmother. It’s the true story of how a woman and her daughter survived and saved others in brutal bomb-making slave labor camps and Bergen-Belsen through sabotage, daring escapes, and rescues from near death—often with the help of unlikely allies.
Pauline is a Board Member of Generation After DC, a nonprofit network of Jewish Holocaust survivors, their children and descendants. When she’s not writing or directing, she shares her family’s Holocaust experiences at synagogues, countywide Yom HaShoah commemorations, and in middle and high school classrooms. She lives with her husband, Bill Creed, in Chevy Chase, MD.
Advance Praise
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Former Project Director of the USHMM
Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University
“Seldom do writers on the Holocaust have access to diaries from both a mother and her daughter. With these materials in hand, Pauline Steinhorn crafted a wonderful book about her mother and grandmother, retelling, often in their own voices, the story of their struggles—together and apart and together again—from the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna to the forests and slave labor camp, then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the days when the Typhus epidemic that took the lives of Anne and Margot Frank in the winter of 1945, was lethal to many thousands."
Trained medically, Bronia Feldman is indispensable to the inmates and even useful to their masters, who need their workers to work. Heroically, daringly, courageously, she tries to save those who can be saved and protect her fellow Jews if at all possible. Bereft of her husband and two younger daughters, who were deported from the ghetto, she fiercely protects her oldest child, Hajuta, who at 13 must become a woman to survive for a time on her own. The story is told with accuracy and grace. It is a work to be savored. And though it probes the depths of darkness with brutal honesty, it also explores rare moments of compassion and decency by the perpetrators and the intense struggle for survival.”
Cliff Hackel, Emmy, Peabody and Dupont award-winning Filmmaker & Producer of
My Dear Children, a pogrom-era documentary
“There is almost a cinematic quality to Dreaming of the River. The details in Pauline Steinhorn’s descriptions take the reader to each location during their harrowing journey through the camps of Poland and Germany. You can see the ghetto, the barracks, and the forest. And you can feel their emotions as well. They drive home the themes of family, perseverance, and uncertain survival. There are countless books written about the Holocaust, but none that I know of mirror the perspectives of a mother and her teenage daughter. Pauline Steinhorn has done a remarkable job of curating and weaving their stories together in a riveting fashion.”
Martin Goldsmith, author of Alex's Wake: The Tragic Voyage of the St. Louis to Flee Nazi Germany and The Inextinguishable Symphony
“In Pauline Steinhorn’s stunning Dreaming of the River, the River Kamienna, a mute but eloquent character, keeps alive happy recollections of the years before the Holocaust turned its fury upon Ms. Steinhorn’s family. In the words of Hajuta, a young woman forced into inhuman slave labor by the Nazis, 'These memories would keep me alive. God was still here. There was life beyond this.' Dreaming of the River is a book bold, bruising, and brave."
Stacey Saiontz, Granddaughter of Holocaust Survivors,
Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Education Committee
Board of Directors, The Anne Frank Center USA
“In this important account, Pauline Steinhorn recounts her mother’s and grandmother’s remarkable story of survival, from the Skarżysko Ghetto to the HASAG labor camp and eventually to Bergen-Belsen. Survival at HASAG often depended on acts of kindness by individuals who, in unimaginable circumstances, never lost their humanity. This eloquently written story of women’s resilience, strength, and hope is profoundly inspiring and reminds us that there can be light even in the darkest of times.”
Peter Lovenheim, author of In the Neighborhood and Giftshop of Gratitude
“I’ve been intrigued and charmed by this story since Pauline Steinhorn’s excerpt appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Now, readers everywhere can enjoy the full tale in this important and compelling work.”
Leslie K. Barry, screenwriter, author, and executive producer of Newark Minutemen, a bestselling historical crime drama and soon-to-be motion picture
“Dreaming of the River effortlessly transports readers to Poland during WWII, focusing on the plight of one Jewish family. The author's writing style is engaging and immersive, and captures the characters' anguish and despair during a time of war and turmoil. The writing is excellent, and the story is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Pauline Steinhorn has written an emotional and captivating story that will linger with readers long after they finish it.”
Dena Hirsch, Daughter of two Holocaust Survivors
Board of Directors, Generations After DC
Member, Jewish Community Relations Council's Holocaust Commission
“Two years after Pauline Steinhorn finished editing her mother’s Holocaust journals, she discovered those of her late grandmother. The book she had originally planned to write about her mother’s harrowing—and inspiring—experiences became much more than that as she intertwined her mother’s and grandmother’s stories into a riveting narrative. Ms. Steinhorn describes in aching detail how the two not only survived but made it possible for others to survive. A powerful and beautifully written book.”
Jeffrey L. Katz, author of Unsettled Ground: Reflections on Germany’s Attempts to Make Amends
“Remember what happened here. Remember and tell the world.” I will not soon forget the words spoken to Pauline Steinhorn’s mother by other concentration camp inmates who thought she had a better chance to survive than they did. They were right. Hajuta made it out alive, as did her mother, Bronia. Their courage and determination lives on in Steinhorn’s powerful new book. Steinhorn’s mother and grandmother were subjected to great cruelty during the Nazi occupation of Poland. But they had a fierce will to live, helped by occasional captors who showed them grace, much as Bronia used her skills as a nurse on friend and foe alike. This is an inspiring story to read and, yes, to remember."
Ronna Borenstein-Levy, Immediate Past Chairperson, Board of Directors, Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington
“A powerful reminder.”