A True Story of Courage, Secrets and Survival

Bernard Rosenfeld was a highly respected leader in the Shreveport Jewish community, a business owner and self-taught artist, who miraculously escaped WWII Europe amidst horrors and heartbreak. His secret quest for truth, inner peace and purpose reveals a deeply vivid and historically informative story of the unbreakable strength of the human spirit.

Speaker Information: 

In her deeply moving presentation, author Nancy Rosenfeld shares the astonishing story her father couldn’t speak — a legacy of loss, resilience, and the will to continue on. The acclaimed historical memoir is titled 50 Cents for a Life: A True Story of Surviving by Synchronicity.

At just 17, Bernard Rosenfeld miraculously escaped from Lithuania in 1939 during early panicked days of WWII. Seventeen family members would later be murdered in forests and pits. His past — buried. His pain — locked away to numb the agony. For almost fifty years, he spoke not a word of it, fearing an explosion of grief.

Until one day from his long-time home in Shreveport, Louisiana, he mailed to his four daughters a secret manuscript — a riveting account of escape, loss, and survival that changed everything. He painstakingly exposed the simple village life, chaos of borders closing, his miraculous route to America, and shocks as a non-citizen drafted into the US Army ordered to return to Europe. He searched for family in the 1940s with frustration at European embassies, displacement camps, and through decades of correspondence. Astonishing discoveries unfolded, as his artistic gifts soothed emotions onto canvas.

Nancy felt compelled to hunt through WW2 timelines and locations, tracing facts alongside his raw and innocent storytelling to illuminate a broader picture surrounding the danger of his escape and family’s fate. Astonishing new discoveries surfaced even after her book’s release — long-hidden maps, unheard survivor voices, and an emotional encounter and dialogue with the grandson of the man responsible for her family’s deaths.

Nancy Rosenfeld is the author of six nonfiction works exploring transformation and authenticity. She’s a former CFO and strategic planning consultant, now a national speaker, author, and artist enjoying life in Maui, Hawai‘i.