Celia Menczel was born in London, England, in 1940, weeks before the Blitz began. Her greatest influences were her mother, who had escaped from Vienna to London with the aid of righteous gentiles, and her English father, who had volunteered in the British Army and was terribly wounded in Normandy. Her mother emphasized the importance of forgiving but not forgetting the Holocaust, while her father taught the futility of war. As a result of the suffering she witnessed and her Jewish faith, Menczel has tried to be a pacifist and to better understand ”the other.” After the war, her family emigrated to Canada, where she was educated, became a nurse and emigrated to the United States in 1962. She worked in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and in California for the Veterans Administration and Kaiser. She has also been a book store owner and a foster parent—but the role closest to her heart is that of grandmother.