Never in human history has there been an event more horrifying than the Holocaust—the human loss inconceivable, the aftershocks felt for generations. But in the midst of the misery was forged a strength of spirit and humanity that shows in the faces and stories of survivors. Captured here with clarity and truth are fifty images of survival, portraits of the men and women who actually lived through the brutality. The tales of survival vary: the misery of day-to-day existence in the camps; the luxury and guilt of passing as a non-Jew; the ever-mounting dread of having a hiding place raided by the SS; the chaos of families fleeing, broken and scattered.
Punctuating the narratives throughout the book are impassioned essays by Abe Foxman, Yaffa Eliach, Anne Roiphe, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Eva Fogelman, and others. An introduction by National Book Award–winner Robert Jay Lifton opens the text. Taken together, this powerful collection of words and images forms a moving testimony to human dignity and a record of history that must never be forgotten.