San Mateo Holocaust survivor shares life story in new memoir

Diamond, now 95, is one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors on the Peninsula, surviving slave labor in Nazi Germany, becoming an orphan at the age of 12 and eventually fighting in combat missions — all before he turned 18.

Born and raised in Poland, he and his family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, where Diamond smuggled in drugs so his father, a physician, could keep treating patients. David was eventually arrested and sent into slave labor on a farm in Germany for two years before he was liberated by a Russian soldier, who made him ride on top of a train car back to Poland.

“The soldier told me, ‘remember when you see an underpass, lay down flat, otherwise your head is going to be chopped off,’” David Diamond said. “That’s how I was able to come back to Warsaw in one piece. I’m laughing about it now, but it wasn’t as funny at the time.”

He ended up fighting in the Jewish Brigade under the British Army in present-day Israel at age 15, eventually immigrating to the United States and living a relatively peaceful life, never opening up about his experiences, despite opportunities to do so — both publicly and privately — over the years.

“I’ve been invited many times to be a speaker, and one time, I went on the stage and I just choked. I couldn’t do it,” he said. “Once I remind myself of my mom and dad, that’s it. I’m broken up.”

But things changed eventually, when, a few years ago, his son Todd Diamond started asking him questions about his life at King Chuan, a Chinese restaurant in San Carlos.

“It was like a Jewish truth serum — Mongolian beef and Scotch,” Todd Diamond said. “Catholics have their confessional booths, and for Jews, in my family at least, we confess in Chinese restaurant booths.”

Todd Diamond, an advertising copywriter, turned the collection of stories into the recently released memoir “Pass the Trauma, Please,” which he describes as perhaps the only Holocaust memoir that, despite the dark anecdotes, is actually “not that depressing” — somber but equally humorous.

The book details David Diamond’s experiences as an orphan, soldier and Holocaust survivor but it also includes the imperfect lives led by him and his children, including Todd, and what it means to carry multigenerational rage.

“It’s a very Israeli thing to do, to overcorrect and over-respond,” Todd Diamond said.

Todd Diamond recalled a time when he was in school and in response to his friend hitting him with a wet, twisted rag, he took a heated spatula and seared it into the boy’s hand.

“I thought, ‘I did what I was supposed to do,’” he said. “It’s that kind of thinking that trickled down.”

Before the fateful conversations at King Chuan, Todd Diamond had a limited version of what his father went through, often finding out details by accident. For instance, David Diamond’s mother was murdered by Nazis while she was in the hospital, which Todd Diamond found out about only because his father reflexively yelled out for her when they were watching an eerily similar scene in “Schindler’s List.”

Despite a range of movies and books about the Holocaust, the rise in antisemitic attacks and a concerning level of revisionist Holocaust history — not to mention his father’s age — heightened the sense of urgency to tell as many survivors’ stories as possible. But the book is less concerned about portraying David as a hero overcoming evil forces and more about the complicated yet entertaining tapestry of anger, humor and questionable choices.

“He did not lead a PG-13 life,” Todd Diamond said, especially during his time as a young adult. “He had to do some really hard things and make tough moral choices.”

The book details riveting anecdotes around misplaced rage, sex, dysfunctional relationships and addiction — all while ensuring the family’s characteristic humor is maintained throughout.

“It’s like Larry David meets Alan Arkin meets Mel Brooks when he really gets going, especially if there’s a Scotch in his hand,” Todd Diamond said. “It’s quite funny.”