Survival Archives - Memoir Magazine

15 Minute Read/Adversity/Escape/Featured/Incarceration/Inspirational/Loss/nonfiction/Refugees/Survival/trauma

From Mauthausen to Freedom: A Story of Resolve and Assimilation, chronicled by Louis Arthur Norton

This is how the Holocaust ended for me, a solitary Polish-Jew liberated by American soldiers from the infamous death camp Mauthausen. I was at the time an emaci...

7 Minute Read/AIDS/Featured/Health/HIV/Identity/Inspirational/LGBTQ/nonfiction

1 in 300 by Cephas Barbosa

Formally coming out at 19 in the mid-’80s was a catastrophe ruled by fear. Fear, fear, fear. Fear of HIV and AIDS. It was a panic that molded my life and ruled ...

10 Minute Read/Adversity/Art/Escape/Featured/Family/Fathers/Identity/Justice/Loss/nonfiction/Refugees/Society/Survival

KGB search, Chop Train Station, The Promised Land By Ella Reznikova

My father and mother are trapped in this country, waiting for many years for permission to immigrate. Every six months he patiently goes alone to the Soviet Vis...

20 Minute Read/Addiction/Family/Grief/Institutions/Literature/Loss/Mental Illness/nonfiction/Recovery/Survival

Please Survive by Catharine Lucas

For years, I believed I could FIX my son, control, restrict, protect him, by sheer force of will. When that didn’t work, I’d throw up my hands in despair and tr...