About
Mel Laytner was a reporter and editor of hard news for nearly 20 years, much of it as a foreign correspondent for NBC News and United Press International covering the Middle East.
As a reporter with UPI, he covered all manner of urban mayhem in New York City, his hometown. After a stint as a one-person bureau chief, he moved to the General and Cables (foreign) Desks and became the “slot man” editor on both, responsible for selecting and editng the day’s top stories for UPI’s 400 afternoon newspaper clients.
His first foreign assignment was London. A year later, UPI moved him to Tel Aviv and shortly after that, he was named Jerusalem Correspondent. NBC News recruited Mel as its Middle East Radio Correspondent.
After eight grinding years overseas, Mel was awarded a prestigious Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Business and Economic Journalism, which included a year’s residency at Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. Mel holds Master’s degrees from both the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, and from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.
He lives in New York City with his wife, an artist and teacher, and is the father of three daughters.
Featured Work
What They Didn't Burn
What if you uncovered a Nazi paper trail that revealed your father to be a man very different from the quiet, introspective Dad you knew…or thought you knew?
Growing up, author Mel Laytner saw his father as a quintessential Type B, passive and conventional. As he unearthed the documents the Nazis didn’t burn, another man emerged—a black market ringleader and wily camp survivor who made his own luck.
Like Laytner’s father, every Holocaust survivor has an amazing story. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have survived. Yet if the stories sound too amazing, they risk being dismissed as exaggerations, or worse. How do we show the truth, especially to younger generations further and further removed from the war?
Laytner lets the Nazis do it.
In this investigative memoir, Laytner unearths a timeline of Nazi documents they didn’t burn that tracks Josef Dolek Lajtner from home to ghettos, slave labor, concentration camps, death marches, and more. In corroborating the father’s more unbelievable stories, the tattered papers also corroborate the stories of Lajtner’s camp comrades, those who survived...and those who did not.
Melding the intimacy of personal memoir with the rigors of investigative journalism, What They Didn't Burn is also an inspirational story of resilience and redemption, of desperate refugees turned hopeful immigrants rebuilding shattered lives in America. It is about a reporter's quest, a son's revelation, and a father's unlikely saga of survival -- confirmed by the Nazis themselves.
Other Works
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"The Death Marches." Tablet Magazine
2022
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"From a Name to a Number," Tablet Magazine
2020
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"Did a Supposed Nazi Document Fool the Experts?" Tablet Magazine
2020
Press and Media Mentions
- Kirkus Reviews... A scrupulously researched and dramatic remembrance… the author presents his findings with a remarkable blend of meticulousness and unabashed emotion, movingly communicating what he experienced during the process
- Diane Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review... A memoir and history like no other Holocaust story…Its eye-opening impact makes What They Didn't Burn unparalleled, powerful, and essential reading. that will ideally prompt debates and group studies about Holocaust survivors and Nazi experiences.
- Jewish Book Council...dramatic, harrowing, and haunting...a well-written potent story of memory and tribute told with integrity and weight.
- Asher Syed for Readers Favorite...Tightly written and compelling on every page, the progression of Dolek’s “luck” proves to be a terrifying endurance test. This is most certainly not luck. It is the grit and rapid intelligence of a man who can read a situation quickly to maximize the odds of survival. Very highly recommended.
- Mort Laitner, Times of Israel... A master writer who paints pictures in your head that make you think you’re in the ghetto, in the camp and on the death march standing next to his father. A writer who paints masterpieces in your mind that cause your lacrimal glands to secret tears and make you realize it’s time to visit the graves of your parents.
- Urban Book Reviews...a phenomenal read. It was well-researched and cleverly written. I was hooked... I will definitely be keeping this book on my shelf and share it with those I know.
- "From a Number to a Name," Tablet Magazine article
- "Did a Supposed Nazi Document Fool the Experts?" Tablet Magazine
