Quiet joy felt in the silence
Helen Signy reflects on normality amidst the horror of the Holocaust.
This is me standing at the remains of the Sobibór death camp in eastern Poland in 2020, researching my novel, Maya’s Dance.
Author Helen Signy at Sobibor
It’s closely based on the true story of a Holocaust survivor, Lucie Pollack-Langford, who escaped when a Polish guard fell in love with her and got her out.
Imagining Lucie’s experiences was never going to be easy. And as I visited the sites where millions of people were murdered, my overwhelming feeling was how normal everything seemed.
There was nothing other than silent trees and birdsong. In the village where Lucie was detained, there was no indication at all that there had once been a camp housing 500 people there. Just fields and buildings. Life has gone on.
And that’s the point of fictionalising the Holocaust, I think. We need to remember. Especially now.
I’ve tried to tell this love story in a way that will resonate – in a way that reflects the joy and lust for life that Lucie had, despite everything that happened to her.
When I left, I placed an Australian $2 coin at the memorial in Sobibór to remember Lucie’s mother, who perished, and to thank her for creating the amazing person whose story has changed my life.
“Our dance. Do you remember how I spun and twirled? How I became more than a Jewish girl with battered shoes and dirty clothes . . . We did not know then what it would mean, how that dance would change our lives.”
Based on an incredible true Holocaust story 1942, Sawin, Poland: seventeen-year-old Maya Schulze is struggling to survive in a brutal Nazi labour camp. But despite days filled with hunger, fear and despair, she is able to find courage and beauty in dancing — it is only then that she feels free.
One day a camp guard watches Maya perform and both their destinies are changed forever. Jan falls in love with Maya and promises to protect her; Maya lives for their stolen moments together, when her heart can dance again. Jan ultimately plots Maya’s escape and promises to find her when the war is over, but fate cruelly intervenes.
Fifty years on, having received news that changes everything for her, Maya tells her story to journalist Kate Young. As their friendship grows, they piece together the clues to find Jan before it’s too late.
Maya’s Dance is a powerful tale of survival, resilience and enduring love, based on an incredible true Holocaust story.
Helen is an English writer, journalist and communicator who has lived in Australia for 30 years.
Maya’s Dance is her first novel.
Her second novel, inspired by her own family story, is coming out in March 2026 with Simon and Schuster. Set in Ukraine in 1905, the book follows the escape of a young couple from the sweeping pogroms that preceded the Holocaust. It’s a story of optimism, how our family histories imprint on our futures, and following what’s in our hearts.
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