Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust

Preface

I t is strange how the legends and songs we hear in childhood stay with us to give us hope and inspiration. My favorite myth is of the phoenix that rose from the ashes and winged its way aloft whispering, “Immortality.” Like the mythical phoenix, my mother , sister, and I rose from the ashes of the death camps to start life again. Our rebirth was rooted in the cultural values that shaped and maintained the Jewish people over the ages. Sixty-four years have passed since my liberation from the concentration camp. I no longer can remember where I last put my glasses, yet I remember—clear as light—scenes that turned my sunny childhood into an inferno and killed nearly everyone I loved. I ask myself, How did my mother, my sister, and I survive? How did we survive whole, with love, compassion, and joy for life? Without this human core, survival would have little meaning. These existential questions loom larger in my mind now at the winter of my life, the time of repose and reflection—hence my memoir. Dredging up the darkness of my past was painful. However, wisdom is seldom gained without tears. Seeing the child I was through the eyes of the woman I am now, I find a strong, resilient, and wise girl. While surrounded by suffering and deprivation, she recalls the good of her prewar past and the good people in her community, casting them as hopePreface Preface xvi ful signs that there were and would always be righteous people. What is special about that girl is that she finds a way to preserve goodness in spite of the evil that rages around her. She brings her own light into the darkness. This is what sustains her and sustains my memoir. Without that, one is overwhelmed with the horror and is left drained of hope for humanity. I dedicate my memoir to all the wonderful children whose voices were silenced in the Holocaust and to all the children who are in harm’s way in our time. ...