BANFF – Mark Biederman knew little about his father’s past. A man of few words, Biederman’s father spoke very little about himself.
Biederman knew his father’s was a Holocaust survivor but there was one other small clue left as a window to his past – the mention of his father’s buried gold coins somewhere in Poland.
“My husband didn’t even know about his family in Europe and it left kind of gap in his life,” said his wife Randi Biederman. “Much of what we did was [go to] libraries, travel to Poland to find it.”
The journey to discover his family history, and the long lost gold coins, led Randi and Mark Biederman to write their first book together Schindler’s Listed: The Search for My Father’s Lost Gold.
After Biederman’s father died in 1981, the couple decided to uncover more of his family’s past. This lead to many visits to the library and generating “boxes and boxes of research.”
There was “virtually nothing to go on” and uncovering the Biederman past proved to be challenging. They didn’t even know what his father’s hometown was.
With only the clue of the buried gold coins, the Biederman’s persisted. The search seemed hopeless, but after 20 years – in 2004 – they found the buried coins.
“It was overwhelming in so many ways,” Randi said.
“To finally have gotten into the point of it was the culmination of everything, there was an awful lot of disbelief. It was kind of one of these things, I don’t know how we managed to keep the momentum going.”
From there, they delved further into the Biederman history – discovering that his father was the third person on Oskar Schindler’s list, he almost met Adolf Hitler and his mother was a selected cook for Dr. Josef Mengele.
After making their incredible discoveries into the Biederman family past, they were overwhelmed. With the encouragement of their supporters, they decided to write a book.
Schindler’s Listed: The Search for My Father’s Lost Gold tells the incredible story of not only the search and uncovering for the Biederman’s gold, but also of Biederman’s father’s history during the times of the Holocaust.
“It’s amazing to me the strength of the human, taken from homes, seen most of their families and somehow they managed to survive … It’s phenomenal what people can accomplish,” Randi said.
Randi Biederman will be in Banff to host a book reading and signing at the Indigospirit (Cascade Plaza) on June 22 from noon-4 p.m.
