NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A revelation at 9 years old completely changed one woman's world. At 82, she's just put that story into a book.
"I tell everybody, 'if you have a story to tell, you need to write about it,'" said Kassiana Bateman of Nashville.
Her book 'Out of Hiding' has just been released. Bateman said it was the right time to write it.
"First of all, for my age," she laughed. "I want to have it done before I die."
Bateman has seen a lot of pain in her life. She was born in Berlin, Germany in 1940.
"I was 5 years old when I met my mother officially," Bateman explained.
At the time, she didn't understand why she was living with another family and never knew her mother before then. When she was 9, her mother told her why.
"She told me that I was Jewish," Bateman said. "When I was born, the Nazis had forced the mothers to give their newborns a Jewish first name. My birth certificate is written out to Tana Hirsch because that's what the Nazis ordered. After I was born, my mother was sent to a labor camp, and I was taken in by a Jewish family. My mother and I were separated on purpose because it was easier to hide."
The book tells how the Nazis didn't know where to find Bateman.
"They were still trying to eliminate as many Jews as possible," she said. "In that time, at 3 and 4 years old, you don't tell a child [they are Jewish]. Children talk, and it's just not a smart thing to do."
She later learned at least 30 of her family members were killed in the Holocaust. As a Jewish child in a post-war Germany, Bateman was the target of antisemitism.
"The teacher had nothing better to do than to announce to the class, 'we have a Jew amongst us,'" she said. "I was ridiculed. They were following me and throwing rocks at me. I ran home crying. I didn't understand why that was."
As Bateman grew up, she saw the lasting effects the Holocaust had taken on her mother.
"When I went back to visit my mother, I had to take off my Star of David, because my mother and husband didn't want anyone to know that we're Jewish, even in the 80s and 90s and 2010 even," she said.
At an appearance at Mary, Queen of Angels Assisted Living, Bateman read a bit of her book.
"I want people to understand it can happen again," she said. "I'm very proud of what I am. I'm very proud to be a Jew. I show it every day."
'Out of Hiding' is available on many sites, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Bateman is going to keep writing. She said her next book might be a work of fiction.
