WHO WE ARE
A FEATURE HIGHLIGHTING THE ‘OUTSIDE’ LIVES OF THE MANY VARIED AND INTERESTING MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION.

—by Lois Chazen

Marietta Moskin, a long-time member of All Souls and the founding Editor of the Quarterly Review, was the honored guest in Biberach, a small town in the South of Germany, the third week of April. She was invited to the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Camp Lindele, where she and her parents were prisoners for the last months of World War II. Marietta, who is the author of 16 books for young people, had written a fictionalized autobiographical novel—I Am Rosemarie—about her experiences in the Holocaust in several concentration camps, including the infamous Bergen-Belsen. Published oreiginally in 1972, the book parallels her family’s struggle to survive. The other prisoners at the Internment Camp Lindele were mostly
	Marietta D. Moskin
Marietta being honored with the trans- lation team at a ceremony in Biberach.   English civilians from the Channel Islands. A German translation of I Am Rosemarie was published by Bertelsmann/Random House in Germany and released on the 60th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Marietta was invited by the town and the publisher to participate in the ceremonies for both events. The book, in German titled Um ein Haar: Überleben im Dritten Reich, (“By A Hair: Surviving in the Third Reich”), was translated by a group of Biberach high school students as an imaginative class project led by two English teachers, and was accepted by Bertelsmann for publication. “I returned to Germany for this commemorative occasion with some trepidation and mixed feelings,” Marietta said. “The trip was emotional, yet satisfying. I recently learned that the German edition sold out in three months and my agent has arranged for Bertelsman/Random House to issue a new English edition which will be available in English speaking countries around the world.” Marietta lives and works in a charming ambience. In Marietta’s living room there is a fascinating array of memorabilia. There are many needlepoint pillow covers that she completed herself, contemporary paintings and old drawings. They are an imaginative counterpoint to the room’s now collectible Danish Modern furnishings. On a lamp table near the sofa is a wedding photograph of a handsome couple, Marietta and Don. The bookcases are stuffed with books and stacks of papers and files spill into her dining area where the computer resides. An imposing piece of silver glimmers on a shelf, and in the hall there is a large framed government document from Austro-Hungarian officialdom. Near the living room window there are matched portraits of her children, Linda and Jim. Marietta (Front Left) at School in Amsterdam in 1939 before the war. Marietta was born in Vienna, Austria, but moved to Amsterdam when her father was transferred there by his firm. The invasion of Holland by the Nazis ruined her comfortable, happy childhood. Although a number of her paternal relatives, including her father, had been baptized Catholic in Vienna, the whole family fell under Hitler’s Nuremberg racial laws which decreed them Jewish. This precipitated the family’s five-year journey through persecution and incarceration that in the end, brought them miraculously to the final five months at Biberach, which under the supervision of the International Red Cross, was a paradise compared to the hardships of other camps. Marietta remembers the seemingly sumptuous Red Cross packages filled with food and clothing and chocolates. There was a school for the children and every child was issued a new pair of shoes. At Biberach, of necessity, she learned English quickly through daily conversation and spending many happy hours immersed in the English classics in the British Red Cross library—Dickens, Thackery, Henry James. Following their liberation in 1945 by the French army, Marietta, then a teenager, and her parents lived in Paris for one year while waiting for documents to enter the United States. Two years later, Marietta was finally able to finish high school in two accelerated years. She graduated from Forest Hills High School after a brief stay with an uncle’s family in Scarsdale. Her uncle, who had social ambitions, instructed her not to discuss her wartime experiences. Marietta was accepted at Barnard College and Parsons School of Design on the same day. She was ambivilant about her future career, but her relatives urged her to choose Barnard where she majored in Economics. She went on to earn a MA in Public Finance from the University of Wisconsin. In 1958, she married Donald Moskin, who managed his family’s businesses and who had served in the Navy during World War II. Their parents had met at Lake Placid and had introduced their children. In 1955, Marietta became a member of All Souls. Her two children, Jim and Linda, were born in the mid-1960s. Marietta is now working on another book, a biography of her mother, Clary Dunston, also a member of All Souls, whom she credits as the source of great courage in her family’s survival. From a historical perspective, her mother’s life spanned almost the entire twentieth century, from 1900 to 1998. Marietta’s mother led a privileged, culture-filled childhood in Vienna at the turn of the century, which also saw the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Marietta will write this book for adults. Marietta also loves to write poetry. Several years ago she was invited to open a Sunday service at All Souls with a reading of her poem, Leaves, a reflection on the tragedy of 9/11. She has also translated books from Dutch and German into English. Marietta writes with an uncanny sensitivity to the questions and emotions of young minds. The range of topics she explores is remarkable. One of my favorite books is a biography of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, which also explains Britain’s Parliamentary form of government and incorporates an analysis of Britain’s economic condition before and after Thatcher’s administration. Marietta’s writings encompass studies on religion: In Search of God: The Story of Religion and In the Name of God: Religion in Everyday Life, to books on astronomy, Sky Dragons and Flaming Swords: The Story of Eclipses, Comets, and Other Strange Happenings in the Skies, books of fiction set in different centuries in New York, and Toto, the adventures of a baby African elephant and a Masai boy, inspired by a trip to East Africa with her husband. The Moskins were enthusiastic travelers and made frequent trips to Europe and the Middle East as well as to China, Japan and Africa. Don passed away ten years ago on a trip to Damascus. “I love to do research for my books and I love to travel,” the award-winning writer commented. “It helps to spark the imagination and then the story emerges.” Writing books for children, principally for early teens and occasionally for beginning readers, was a natural transition for Marietta who spent many years reviewing children’s books for the Child Study Association of America (Now the Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street), work that she could do at home when her children were young. Her son, Jim, undertook graduate studies in Linguistics at Oxford and now is a computer expert and consultant. Her daughter, Linda, is a supervising physician at the New York City Department of Health. Both are active at All Souls and are alumni of the Church School. Before her marriage, Marietta worked in her college and university field of study. She was a researcher-economist at the Tax Foundation at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Subsequently, she was offered a position at General Motors Finance Office headquartered in New York. It was her responsibility to review all the financial publications available at the time and summarize the news for her boss’s report to the corporation. Throughout her childhood and through the years of detainment, Marietta kept and worked in sketchpads and notebooks. The love of design and writing continue as lifelong occupations. Marietta was attracted to All Souls in the mid-1950s after a long search for a religious identity. As her association with All Souls approaches the 50-year mark, she reflected on the reasons she joined the church. “My family was not religiously observant. During my first six years, growing up in Vienna, I don’t recall any religious practice. Although I was taken to a Catholic church in Amsterdam and attended catechism classes, neither my only nominally Catholic father nor non-practicing Jewish mother were involved in my religious education,” she said. Marietta’s first real contact with Judaism occurred in Westerbork, the Jewish transit camp where she developed a crush on a young man, the leader of a Zionist youth group, who was determined to educate her in Judaism. Years later, after exploring many different paths including Ethical Culture and Metaphysics, she discovered the Unitarian church in Madison, Wisconsin, and decided that she was most comfortable as a Unitarian, and eventually, more specifically, a Unitarian at All Souls. One of the most active members of All Souls, Marietta has served in many ways and is a familiar face and voice everywhere, on almost a daily basis. Currently, she is a Deacon as well as a member of the Women’s Alliance, the Historical Society, the Women’s Reading Group and a devotee of the Senior Exercise Group. She also established the Food of the Month program to help the Yorkville Common Pantry feeding program. Twenty-two years ago, Marietta founded the All Souls Quarterly Review, and from its inception, has been its Editor. Marietta expresses her views thoughtfully, unafraid of controversy, as in the forum she presented in the Quarterly on the revisions proposed for the Bond of Union. During the first three years of Forrest Church’s tenure she was a member of the Church Board. When her children were in the All Souls Church School, she served on the Religious Education Committee and helped to revise the Church School curriculum. At various times she has served on the Budget and Nominating Committees, and was deeply involved in Adult Education and the Church Fair. Marietta is an engaging and compelling person, outspoken in setting forth the truth and dedicated to helping others. Her love of art and poetry enhances her scholarly approach to writing. I look forward to reading her next book. The 40 student translators in Biberach and their teachers each presented Marietta with a rose at a party in the Stadtbücherei (Town Library).