One in Six Million: The Baby by the Roadside and the Man Who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor's Lost Identity by Amy Fish

At the heart of this memoir is the story of an infant left by the roadside during the Holocaust and the childless couple who find her and raise her as their own, despite the assumption that she is Jewish. While Maria is much loved by her adoptive family, she grows up wanting to learn more about her missing parents and birth relatives. Later in life, with the help of a friend, Maria posts the following message on a JewishGen website discussion page:

I am posting this message on behalf of child Holocaust survivor Maria Vasitinskaya, who lives in Omsk, Siberia. All Maria knows of her beginnings is that she was found as an infant wrapped in a blanket alongside the road on which the Jews were taken on their way to the Krosno ghetto. She was taken in by a Polish couple in 1942, at the age of eight months. Maria hopes that someone reading this message might know who she is.

Unknown to Maria and her friends, and far away in Canada, a man named Stanley Diamond had been labouring on a project that would eventually connect her to cousins and extended family members.

A self-taught genealogist motivated by a family history of a anemia, Stanley initially began his research in order to construct a digital database of Jewish genealogy purely for health reasons. His work eventually led to the creation of the largest and most comprehensive database of Jewish genealogy, with an extensive focus on information about Polish Jews. Stanley became the founder of Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, providing free and accessible information to those searching for information about genetic familial connections.

As his work progressed, Stanley realized the database could also be utilized to assist Jews in searching for family members missing since the Holocaust, and he began to use his research skills to help individuals track down connections to other survivors.

The first half of Fish’s book is a faithful narration of Stanley’s journey as a genealogist leading to the work he facilitated in reuniting missing family members – including Maria. The following section is Maria’s story and details her life and long search for her biological family. Fish writes the following,

“All my life I have thought myself alone and have had to rely only on myself and struggle with the difficulties on my own,” Maria said. Now for the first time, “I have the feeling of belonging to a big family, I am not alone anymore.” When she learned that she was the youngest of three children and that she had many cousins on both her mother’s and her father’s side who were looking forward to meeting her, she felt like the final piece in her puzzle had been slotted into place…
On Thursday, May 17, 2018, in what is considered Israel’s most beloved urban neighbourhood, Tokhnit Lamed, Maria walked into a family reunion organized just for her. Over one hundred of her cousins gathered at the Wohl synagogue, wearing name tags and large smiles. They lined up to embrace the woman that until very recently they had not known existed.

Carefully researched and documented, Fish has brought together important stories about the reunification of family, the selfless dedication involved in the creation of important research tools, and the connectedness of all individuals who struggle to find meaning and purpose in their lives. This book will fascinate those interested in Jewish studies, genealogical tracing and DNA testing.

Amy Fish is the author of two previous books of non-fiction, The Art of Complaining Effectively and I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need. Her writing has also appeared in the Globe and Mail, Montreal Gazette, and Canadian Traveller. She has taught writing workshops for the Canadian Creative Non-Fiction Collective, the University of King’s College, and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. She lives in Montréal where she works as the Ombudsperson at Concordia University.

Publisher: Goose Lane Editions (April 1, 2025)
Paperback 9″ x 6″ | 216 pages
ISBN: 9781773104249

Lucy E. M. Black

Website

Lucy E.M. Black (she/her/hers) is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, Eleanor Courtown, Stella’s Carpet, The Brickworks and Class Lessons: Stories of Vulnerable Youth. A Quilting of Scars will be released October 2025. Her award-winning short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada. She is a dynamic workshop presenter, experienced interviewer and freelance writer. She lives with her partner in the small lakeside town of Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations.