The Freedom Circus

When Sue Smethurst first sat down with her grandmother-in-law and asked how she survived the Holocaust, she was shooed away. By that time Mindla was in a Melbourne nursing home with other survivors, her body ageing but mind still razor sharp.

‘Vhy do you vant to know?’ she’d ask. ‘My story is nothing special.’

But Sue knew Mindla’s life had to be recorded and they were running out of time. Each week she’d bring cake from her favourite shop in St Kilda, a bottle of the brightest nail polish she could find, a handful of old pictures and her tape recorder. They’d chat and paint Mindla’s nails and with each ‘chat’ her story unfolded. It was beyond anything Sue could have imagined.

The tale of how Mindla and her husband Michael Horowitz, a circus performer for the famous Staniewski Brothers, escaped from Poland with their son and embarked on a terrifying journey across Russia, is nothing short of extraordinary.

Written by award-winning author and journalist Sue Smethurst, whose husband is Mindla and Michael’s grandson, The Freedom Circus is an epic story of courage, hope, humanity, survival and, ultimately, love.