Never Be Afraid

Never Be Afraid: A Belgian Jew in the French Resistance is the powerful, poignant, at times funny story of Bernard Mednicki, a working-class, activist member of his socialist union in pre-Nazi Belgium who flees with his family to the mountainous region of southern France when the Nazis invade in 1940, assumes a Christian identity, and, through a series of street-smart moves, joins the Maquis, the French resistance.

 

While there, he commits an act of self-preservation so horrendous, he represses it for over forty years. Only while working with internationally known book coach and editor Ken Wachsberger is he able to unleash the memory and find the peace he needs to join his ancestors.

 

Bernard is a storyteller supreme, in the best tradition of legendary Yiddish storytellers Chaim Potok, Bernard Malamud, and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

 

He wrote his story to preserve his legacy for his descendants. Bernard's subsequent life-transformation shows the power of writing as an instrument of healing.