Journalist Helen Signy's first foray into fiction was inspired by the true story of Holocaust survivor Lucie Pollak-Langford who lived in Sydney and died in 2021.
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Maya's Dance (Simon & Schuster, March 6, $32.99) is a timely story of survival, resilience and enduring love set in the darkest of circumstances.
Helen leaned on Lucie's documented experiences in her self-published book, My Memoir, as well as the hours of oral testimony she recorded in the nineties as part of Steven Spielberg's USC Shoah Foundation project.
She also conducted extensive primary research, including from numerous survivor testimonies, interviews and a trip to Auschwitz, Sawin, Sobibor and Majdanek in Poland.
Throughout her life, Lucie wanted her story to be told through testimony, interviews and her own self-published memoir, and now her family is supporting Helen to continue to do so through this beautiful novel.
"I first heard Lucie's story while I was waiting for my daughter's ballet lesson to finish," Helen said.
"One of the other mothers, Sonja, was visiting an elderly couple whom she had befriended years earlier, and she was worried that Lucie was showing early signs of dementia.
"Sonja told me: 'Lucie was in a labour camp during the Holocaust. One of the guards saw her dance and fell in love with her and he got her out.
"From that moment I have been consumed with Lucie's story. I accessed her documented experiences in her self-published book, My Memoir.
"The fundamentals of Lucie's story are the same as Maya's."
Helen said Jan helped Lucie escape Sawin and she was the only known survivor of that camp.
Kate's story and the way she located Jan are fiction but some of the people who help her and Maya are based on real characters.
Lucie searched for Jan her entire life but by the time she found him, he had died.
A tragic first love story
Poland, 1942: Maya Schulze, 17, is struggling to survive in a brutal Nazi labour camp in Sawin. But despite days filled with hunger, fear and despair, she is able to find courage and beauty in dancing - it is only then that she feels free.
One day a camp guard watches Maya perform, and both their destinies are changed for ever. Jan falls in love with Maya and promises to protect her; Maya lives for their stolen moments together, when her heart can dance again.
Jan ultimately plots Maya's escape and promises to find her when the war is over, but fate cruelly intervenes.
Fifty years on, having received news that changes everything for her, Maya tells her story to journalist Kate Young.
About the author
Helen Signy is an Australian writer who grew up in England - or, depending how she feels that day, an English writer who lives in Australia.
She spent much of her youth travelling the world before becoming a print journalist in Asia and then in Sydney.
Most of her writing these days involves science communications for academics, governments and not-for-profits, but she has never lost her passion for telling an amazing story.
Maya's Dance is her first foray into fiction.
Helen lives on the Northern Beaches in Sydney with her husband, Peter, and, at various times, her (nearly) grown-up children, Ella, Jamie and Katie.
Therese Murray
Wordsmith. Senior journalist. Editor. I have a proven track record in helping people and communities solve their problems. My career is all about telling stories.
Wordsmith. Senior journalist. Editor. I have a proven track record in helping people and communities solve their problems. My career is all about telling stories.
