Auschwitz #34207: The Joe Rubinstein Story

by Nancy Sprowell Geise

I remember Grandfather telling me that among Jews, permanent markings on the skin were strictly forbidden because they were a sin against God. The Nazis had obviously known this about us and how degrading such a brand would be.

They're bringing them here to kill them, in a place where no one will see the evil and no one will know what happened.

History, we’d learned, had a way of repeating itself. The seeds of hate against the Jews were planted deep in Europe’s soil, and seeds have the ability to lie dormant, undetected for a long time before springing back to life and spreading their roots.

Grandfather told me once that within each of us are two opposing inclinations, one toward good and one toward evil, and that God bestowed on us one of the greatest gifts we could ever know—the freedom to choose.

“Today we face an alarming rise in Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism—even in the very lands where the Holocaust happened—as well as genocide and threats of genocide in other parts of the world. This is occurring just as we approach a time when Holocaust survivors and other eyewitnesses will no longer be alive.