Today we’d like to introduce you to Debrianna Obara.
Hi Debrianna, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Writing has always been a passion and it has grown from the beginning of my memories, until today. As a child, I wrote children’s books, and was forever working on a novel or a screenplay. I pursued journalism in college, and after a short stint as a local reporter, I immersed myself into an advertising career. While I did co-write several screenplays with friends during this phase in my life, I really wrote mostly for work – media briefs, new business pitches, thought leadership pieces.
However, two factors intersected in my life – 1. I was going through a divorce, and 2. I was assigned to work on the marketing efforts for USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) based in Washington DC. I have always been an avid history buff – particularly WWII history. Both my parents immigrated from Poland as children, so I grew up with stories of Nazi / Russian invasions and stories of survival. It was during some research I was doing for this client that I stumbled across a story about a camp survivor who had visited the brothels of Auschwitz. I had visited Auschwitz and had never heard a word about a brothel there. Thus, it became my quest to learn as much as I could about the topic, and my novel was conceived: a love story, a war story, and a story that cracks open the hidden truth about this dark chapter of WWII. Grieving the disillusionment of my marriage coincided with this quest, allowing me to escape into my research and my characters and Blok 42 was born.
So now, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It took me a little over a year to write my first draft and another year to edit, strengthen, and improve the manuscript. I decided to pursue a traditional publisher (versus self-publishing) and initially had interest from publishers. This process took a very long time. It took years to find a publisher that was willing to take a chance on an unknown author; I also learned that my original manuscript was too long at 500 pages. Unless you are Diana Gabaldon or JK Rowling, publishers are not interested in books larger than 300-350 pages. That was a difficult part of the re-write and refinement process as entire characters, plot points, and events were removed as I brought Blok 42’s page count down. Today, the book is about 300 pages.
Thanks for sharing that. Next you can tell us a bit more about your job that pays the bills?
I studied Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida with a minor in Slavistics (the study of Slavic Languages and Literature). Right out of school, I lived abroad teaching English at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Poland for about a year. This allowed me a chance to explore my interest in Poland, its people and history deeply. Many of the stories I heard during that year wound up migrating into my novel so many years later and the connections I made then aided in my research.
I briefly worked as a journalist at the Fort Pierce Tribune. Next, I moved to New York City to pursue a career in advertising and later used my writing skills as a senior executive leading new agency business initiatives within the advertising industry. Then, I found myself longing for a more creative outlet for my writing skills and worked with two friends to write screenplays. I love punchy dialogue so that format attracted me, but ultimately, I felt drawn to the format of a novel to tell a sweeping narrative that could bring in a more expansive view. I returned to solo creative writing in 2016 when I was inspired to write the story of Blok 42.
Being the daughter of parents born in Poland during and shortly after WWII, I have a specific interest in how WWII permanently altered Polish life, history, and culture. When I stumbled across the camp brothels, I dug deeper. As far as I know, one anonymous book written in German by a survivor (and never translated) is all that exists, beyond fleeting mentions by survivors (like Primo Levi). It became my quest to read everything I could on the subject (which was scant) and then imagine what the realities were for these poor women.
I am very proud that my book will finally bring dignity to these women’s experiences by fleshing out a truer picture of what life was like for many women during that war. It was important for me not to tell the story simply of borders and battles but to explore the excruciating cost to everyday citizens who were placed in unimaginable circumstances.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
My debut novel Blok 42 brings the disturbing reality of sex slavery at concentration camps in WWII out of the shadows. Beyond the theme, Blok 42 is at its heart a story about love, loss, and redemption in the contours of the brothels in Auschwitz. Blok 42 will be released by British-based Vanguard Publishing. It is currently available for presale on my website https://www.debriannaobara.com/.
My book explores the dehumanizing effects of war and how the little decisions can have a life-changing impact, as well as depicts the moral compromises and desperate lengths that people will go to in order to survive. Out of a horrific story, Blok 42 brings forth a love story, where love seemingly rises from the ashes from the depths of tragedy.
This book unveils quite a few surprises about WWII history. For one, many people do not know that there were brothels in concentration camps. The purpose of the so-called brothels was to incentivize the male prisoners to work harder by offering them sex – and the women who were forced to work in the brothels were prisoners themselves. This set up a twisted dynamic where male prisoners were given special privileges at the expense of female prisoners. In today’s post me-too movement, it struck me that this situation blurs questions of consent and survival, and who is victimizing whom.
Another surprising element of Blok 42 that I explored is the kidnapping of Aryan-looking Polish children that were sent to German households to bolster their Aryan-populations. More than 18,000 Polish children were kidnapped from their parents and sent to Germany to be Aryanized and few were ever reunited with their parents.
My book illustrates the cost paid by local populations, Jewish and non-Jewish, by the brutal years of Nazi and Russian occupations.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.debriannaobara.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authordebriannaobara/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095179652164
