The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz: A True Story of Family and Survival

by Jeremy Dronfield

No matter what occurred in the world, no matter how near danger might be, life went on, and what could one do but live it?

The Nazis were louder, growing bolder, and most of them were youths, empty of life experience and pumped full of ideology.8

“It is true that Jews in Germany have not been formally condemned to death; it has only been made impossible for them to live.”

New York was all modernity from foundations to sky, a town built out of automobiles and glass and concrete and people and people and people and still more people who themselves seemed more of the modern world than any in Europe. Kurt and his friends were aliens in every way.

Eduard Hamber had based his heroic sacrifice on the premise that the SS could be brought to account for their crimes, or at least be made to fear that they might be. All he had proved was that they were immune and their power was limitless.

kindness could be found in unexpected places.

As far as the regime was concerned, Gustav Kleinmann was officially no longer Jewish. By the mere alteration of a list and a badge, he officially ceased to be an intrinsic threat and burden to the German people. And there, neatly played out in one simple, self-satirizing ritual, was the whole towering idiocy of Nazi racial ideology.

It took strength of character to share and love in a world where selfishness and hate were common currency.

endurance was everything, misery was only for a time, hope and spirit were undying.