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Prologue

For a very long time I felt that I owed it to myself, to my family and to the world to put down on paper the events that I lived through during the years 1939-1946, events that I personally had no influence whatsoever over as to their development. I was only 16 in 1939, and even though I followed the events that were happening in Europe all through my high school years by reading newspapers and listening to radio broadcasts from most of the European capitals I could only be a passing bystander to the events.

These events, leading up to and including World War II, were so unusual, so historically significant, and so all encompassing, that never in the history of the human race have there been developments of that intensity, which started in Europe and touched the whole globe. I have therefore lived during a historical period, that may have been the most miserable in the lives of the Jewish people, but it was the most interesting one for me.

I have read very many books and watched many movies and television shows with the Holocaust as the subject. It has almost become a banal subject. I can see that many of the younger generation, even children of Holocaust survivors, are not very interested anymore in what has happened in those far away years and unless some way is found to include those historical events in the school curriculum as part of the study of history, I am afraid that the memory of those years will fade away as time goes on. There are some exceptions to this lack of interest, but they are few and far between, considering the accent in Jewish schools is being put on religious education. I don't blame them. Sometimes, even I cannot conceive the possibility that such things could have happened.

Nevertheless it is very important for everybody to know in detail the events that took place. Just as science of statistics can forecast events based on past occurrences, Jews have to know the past to guide them through life in the future. And not only the present generation should know what, how and why it all happened, but all the generations to come. Without having acted upon that knowledge, there would not have been a State of Israel, which mostly relies upon itself for its existence.

The tragedy that hit the Jewish people in continental Europe as a whole, is actually the tragedy of every single one of the six million Jews that perished during the Holocaust. Therefore the Jewish people suffered not one but six million tragedies. This, the world seems to forget by treating the subject as a collective occurrence. But the death of the individual, as part of the collective was preceded by indescribable sufferings that lasted for years before death finally came. And what about forced broken family ties and parents seeing their children tortured? Is there any way to describe the feelings of these parents? Are there any suitable words to describe them?

Lately a number of books have been, or are about to be published regarding this subject. As time goes on there are less and less survivors and they are getting on in years, as is the case with myself. Therefore many of the survivors are trying to leave a legacy for posterity. I finally got around to record my memories during 1992-1993.

The events that I describe are not pretty reading and are not entertaining. I feel it is my duty to warn the reader. Some of the events are quite shocking.

Even though my story fits into the general subject of the Holocaust, I feel that it is different from most others that I have read, and therefore is worth preserving. Here it is.



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