Okay. I don’t think I could even begin to write about my last week with any reasonably appropriate terms. So, I’m bringing you an awesome history book instead. Check it out.

The Lost Artist: Love Passion War

(Part 1)

By Eric Houston

“A page-turner! Revealing important insight into little-known history of pre-state Palestine and World War II, this fascinating journey of a remarkable man is a rip-roaring story from beginning to end. I recommend it to everyone.”
–Rabbi Mark S. Golub, JBS TV, jbstv.org

A Search for a Famed Illustrator Uncovers a World War II Hero

1934: A 13-year-old Jewish boy escapes Nazi Germany to become the highest decorated WWII Palestinian (future Israeli) soldier in the British Army.

2010: A top Israeli computer scientist searches for the favorite artist of her youth.
From the rise of the Nazi Party through the formation of the State of Israel, across a sea of time, their worlds collide.
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An esteemed researcher at IBM Israel joined a sixty-year search to discover the identity of the illustrator of “the pearl of Israeli children’s literature,” And There Was Evening, a bestseller and timeless classic, now in its 42nd edition. Fred Hausman, the celebrated, but unknown, artist also happened to be the highest decorated WWII Palestinian soldier in the British Army, the only one to earn the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), the highest gallantry award for a non-British citizen in the British Army, making it the most important WWII medal to Israel.

The present and the past meld in The Lost Artist: Love Passion War (Part 1) written by Fred Hausman’s son, Eric Hausman-Houston. The Israeli researcher’s quest to find her favorite illustrator serves as a present-day backdrop to tell Fred Hausman’s harrowing story of escaping Nazi Germany at age thirteen and traveling alone to Palestine. There, he befriended an untamable horse and King Abdullah of Jordan. He joined the Haganah and he helped save illegal Jewish immigrants. The Lost Artist chronicles Hausman’s time in the British Army up until the decisive moment of WWII’s North Africa Campaign, the El Alamein line, 65 miles west of Alexandria, Egypt, July 3, 1942, when the Nazis had won the war but didn’t know it.

Young Hausman’s journey offers personal insight into the history of Palestine and Israel, the rise of the Nazi Party, Zionism, the Holocaust, WWII, and the seeds of our present day Middle East Crisis. The Lost Artist exposes neglected history and government coverups, including British atrocities in Palestine to both Arabs and Jews, why Winston Churchill had to perpetuate the Rommel myth, and how German resistance working at a Berlin radio station gave their lives to stop the Nazis from winning the war.

The Quest for the Medal Continues to this Day

Fred Hausman’s Distinguished Conduct Medal was unlawfully sold to a British lord under false terms. At the end of the book, there is a bonus chapter with information on these seedy misdoings, followed by documentation of Eric Hausman-Houston’s correspondence with Scotland Yard, the British Ministry of Defense, DNW Auction House, and billionaire Lord Michael Ashcroft, who is currently in possession of the stolen medal.

Eric Houston

The Lost Artist author Eric Hausman-Houston has been a concert pianist, playwright, and ghostwriter.

As a concert pianist in the 1980s, Eric Hausman-Houston was offered a Julliard scholarship by Abbey Simon. He was signed by Global Records, who changed his name from Hausman to Houston. His first album, Beethoven Sonatas: Moonlight Pathetique Appassionata, received critical acclaim and won the Grammy for Best Producers. To promote his second album, Tonight and Forever, a collection of popular classical piano pieces, Houston went on a one hundred concert tour. Responsible for all travel expenses, he went into debt. Planning to sit out his four-year contract, Houston wrote his first play, Playing with Fire. Playing with Fire was picked up by Earl Graham of the Graham Agency and optioned for Off-Broadway by Lois Deutchman, producer of Oil City Symphony. Houston never returned to the piano.

Houston’s play, Becoming Adele, the recipient of the Key West Theater Festival Award, was produced and directed by Gerry Cohen at the Court Theatre in Los Angeles, produced Off-Broadway by the Gotham Stage Company with director Victor Maog, and optioned by Warner Bros. Television. His play, Sweet Deliverance, was given an extended run at the Hudson Theatre in Los Angeles, and was the last play optioned by legendary Broadway producer, Alexander Cohen. Edward B. Morgan of Washington County News called Sweet Deliverance “the funniest play to come out of the Barter Theatre.”

After having worked as a ghostwriter, The Lost Artist marks Houston’s first book written in his own voice and name.

All proceeds from The Lost Artist will go to reuniting Fred Hausman’s Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), and other medals stolen from within the British Ministry of Defense, with their rightful owners. The Hausman medals will then be donated to an orphanage in Israel so that they may sell the Hausman medals to a museum.

The Lost Artist can be found at Amazon.com, BN.com, or request it from your local bookstore.