A novel by Todd H. Albert
Out of the
Fish Tank
The reconstructed life of Chaim Zeidler — a Galician Jew who survived captivity in the First World War, lived under a series of assumed identities, and finally remade himself in Brooklyn.
The story
Chaim Zeidler survived two world wars, a Russian revolution, a Central Asian prison camp, and a death-sentenced existence — forced to abandon his name, his faith, and his identity more than once just to stay alive.
He was presumed dead by his own family. He returned years later.
They didn't believe their eyes.
This is the true story of a man who was knocked down by history again and again-and got up every single time.
A story of survival. Of silence.
Of love that refused to disappear.
From the opening pages
“To understand how a living man comes to be turned away as a ghost on his own family's doorstep, you have to go back past two wars, a Central Asian prison camp, and two borrowed names, all the way back to a tavern in a village on the eastern edge of an empire that no longer exists.”
The reconstruction
Todd H. Albert, Ph.D., spent the first part of his career as a research glaciologist, conducting NASA- and NOAA-funded fieldwork on glaciers and ice from Greenland to the Peruvian Andes, the Rockies, and the Alps. Out of the Fish Tankturns that same investigative instinct inward — onto his own family's buried past.
The book reconstructs the life of his ancestor Chaim "Hyman" Zeidler: a Galician Jew who survived captivity in the First World War, lived under a series of assumed identities, and finally remade himself in Brooklyn. Drawing on family recordings, oral histories, archival transport records, and years of genealogical research, Albert pieces together a story his family nearly lost.
About the author
Todd H. Albert is a writer and the great-grandson of the man at the center of this book. A former NASA research fellow and longtime technologist, he spent years chasing the paper trail his ancestor left across three continents.
For his work in technology and engineering leadership, see toddalbert.com.
Get the book
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