From the Flames

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This story is a book of miracles, of the human goodness of Righteous Persons who risked their own lives to save others, and of a seventeen-year-old young man’s survival in the face of insurmountable obstacles and certain death in four slave labor camps. It is a poignant look at human endurance at its best and worst. William Hauben speaks of his lost family and, in one simple story, of the heroic deeds of his younger brother who ran away to live outside the Cracow Ghetto with Gentile friends. Under cover of darkness, his brother smuggled in precious food and communication from the outside world, as he traveled on bicycle, with no identification papers, dressed as a scout carrying the books of a schoolboy to deceive the Germans. Righteous Gentiles who were converted Volksdeutsche provided the boy with food and a little money in exchange for merchandise left behind from the family business before they entered the ghetto. The author tells other such stories that pull at the heartstrings. The book contains photos and documents, as well as the author’s extensive catalogued collection of items of Jewish culture hidden, and later rescued, from the Germans during World War II. He has been collecting these treasures for more than fifty years.