“Pass the Trauma, Please isn’t just about the death camps, the gas chambers, the incomprehensible evil. It’s about… managing to find light and humor amidst the wreckage. It is a testament to the power of memory.”
—ABE FOXMAN, former Director of the Anti-Defamation League
If Mel Brooks and Amy Schumer adopted a second-generation Holocaust survivor, raised him, then sent him off to a writer’s retreat for anxious Jews, you’d probably get something like this…
A comedy-drama memoir that presents the most brutal moment of Jewish history in an unorthodox manner. It honors the stories and life lessons of a survivor, shared over meals oozing with MSG.
Like many books about the Holocaust, it addresses loss. But there’s also drug smuggling, attempts to reverse a circumcision, brothels, kibbutz ambushes, divorce, death camp visits, decadent nights at Studio 54, and tales of lost virginity.
But it’s not just stories that were passed down from a survivor to his sons. Genetically-Inherited Holocaust Trauma hitches a ride, burrowing deeply into the second generation, resulting in dysfunctional relationships and questionable behaviors.
Available September, 2025 Fig Tree Books
“The enormity of the Holocaust could not possibly be dissipated in one generation. Todd Diamond’s daring, transgressive, entertaining memoir reads like a roller-coaster speeding from past to present and then back again, reimagining the unimaginable, looking for a finishing line that can never be crossed and a legacy that can’t be ignored.”
—THANE ROSENBAUM
Author of the post-Holocaust trilogy, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and Elijah Visible
ABOUT TODD DIAMOND
Born in Queens, New York, Todd delivers narratives that are unapologetically raw and darkly humorous—a reflection of the borough that raised him. Whether it’s sordid tales from his advertising career or stories about his family’s Holocaust experiences, he resonates with those who prefer their prose served with a healthy dose of cynicism and unsweetened insight.
PRAISE FOR "PASS THE TRAUMA, PLEASE"
PRAISE FOR "PASS THE TRAUMA, PLEASE"
“This original, provocative and irreverent memoir presents us with a unique second-generation Holocaust survivor viewpoint that is worthy of a film script. It helps us fathom the unfathomable and even manages to make us laugh along the way. This is not your typical Holocaust story in any way, shape or form and therein lies its strength.”
—JAY ROSENBLATT
Academy Award nominated director
“I laughed so hard at some of this and felt sick in other places. Definitely a whirlwind of emotions. I sure wish I could meet Todd’s father. What a story.”
—ELIZABETH ASDORIAN
Creative Director, Ancestry.com
“The twists and turns and carnage and trauma of the Holocaust are set out in a moving, yet uniquely spirited way.”
—AMY SILVERSTEIN
author of My Glory Was I Had Such Friends
“It takes great courage to confront one’s demons by sharing them with your children, especially when they are now adults. Yet, that’s exactly what 90-year-old Holocaust survivor, David Diamentstein, finally does—before his time runs out. Written with much love and wit, his son Todd comes to grips with his own trauma by connecting the historic dots between the Holocaust and the rise of current global antisemitism in the post October 7th world. Pass the Trauma, Please stands as a unique memoir among Holocaust literature because it does far more than document the past. It connects the past to the present.”
—HAYA MOLNAR
author of Under a Red Sky: Memoir of a Childhood in Communist Romania, winner of the National Jewish Book Award
