Author: Leah Kaufman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789655782646
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
At the age of ten, Leah found herself alone in the world in the frigid wastes of Transnistria - Nobody's Girl. Her mother's last words to her - "You must live! You must remember! You must tell!" - somehow gave her the strength to survive the terrors of death camps and orphanages and to rebuild her life as a refugee in Canada. Leah remained silent for fifty years while she raised a fine Jewish family and educated generations of Jewish children. Until the fateful phone call came that gave her no peace and forced her to go out and tell the world.
LIVE! REMEMBER! TELL THE WORLD!, The Story of a Hidden Child Survivor of Transnistria
Author: Leah Kaufman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789655782646
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
At the age of ten, Leah found herself alone in the world in the frigid wastes of Transnistria - Nobody's Girl. Her mother's last words to her - "You must live! You must remember! You must tell!" - somehow gave her the strength to survive the terrors of death camps and orphanages and to rebuild her life as a refugee in Canada. Leah remained silent for fifty years while she raised a fine Jewish family and educated generations of Jewish children. Until the fateful phone call came that gave her no peace and forced her to go out and tell the world.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789655782646
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
At the age of ten, Leah found herself alone in the world in the frigid wastes of Transnistria - Nobody's Girl. Her mother's last words to her - "You must live! You must remember! You must tell!" - somehow gave her the strength to survive the terrors of death camps and orphanages and to rebuild her life as a refugee in Canada. Leah remained silent for fifty years while she raised a fine Jewish family and educated generations of Jewish children. Until the fateful phone call came that gave her no peace and forced her to go out and tell the world.
Live! Remember! Tell the World!
Author: Leah Kaufman
Publisher: Mesorah Publications, Limited
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Memoirs of Kaufman, a Jew who was born in 1932 in the town of Herţa in Romania (now Hertsa, Ukraine). Chs. 1-4 (pp. 23-94) relate her experiences of antisemitism as a child, as well as her suffering in the Holocaust. In summer 1941 she, her parents, and her six siblings were sent on a death march to Transnistria, during which many Jews perished from starvation or disease, and many others were killed by their Romanian guards. Some of Kaufman's family members died during the march, and those who remained perished shortly after reaching Transnistria. Kaufman wandered through forests and villages, stealing or begging for food, and then worked for a Ukrainian woman in Mogilev. She was betrayed by Jewish collaborators and sent to the Pechora internment camp, but escaped and returned to Mogilev. In 1943 she was allowed to return to the Dorohoi region, with other orphans. After the war she was sent by UNRRA to Canada, where much later, in 1995, she began to speak to audiences about her experiences.
Publisher: Mesorah Publications, Limited
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 264
Book Description
Memoirs of Kaufman, a Jew who was born in 1932 in the town of Herţa in Romania (now Hertsa, Ukraine). Chs. 1-4 (pp. 23-94) relate her experiences of antisemitism as a child, as well as her suffering in the Holocaust. In summer 1941 she, her parents, and her six siblings were sent on a death march to Transnistria, during which many Jews perished from starvation or disease, and many others were killed by their Romanian guards. Some of Kaufman's family members died during the march, and those who remained perished shortly after reaching Transnistria. Kaufman wandered through forests and villages, stealing or begging for food, and then worked for a Ukrainian woman in Mogilev. She was betrayed by Jewish collaborators and sent to the Pechora internment camp, but escaped and returned to Mogilev. In 1943 she was allowed to return to the Dorohoi region, with other orphans. After the war she was sent by UNRRA to Canada, where much later, in 1995, she began to speak to audiences about her experiences.
After Memory
Author: Matthias Schwartz
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311071387X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477
Book Description
Even seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the commemorative cultures surrounding the War and the Holocaust in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe are anything but fixed. The fierce debates on how to deal with the past among the newly constituted nation states in these regions have already received much attention by scholars in cultural and memory studies. The present volume posits that literature as a medium can help us understand the shifting attitudes towards World War II and the Holocaust in post-Communist Europe in recent years. These shifts point to new commemorative cultures shaping up ‘after memory’. Contemporary literary representations of World War II and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe do not merely extend or replace older practices of remembrance and testimony, but reflect on these now defunct or superseded narratives. New narratives of remembrance are conditioned by a fundamentally new social and political context, one that emerged from the devaluation of socialist commemorative rituals and as a response to the loss of private and family memory narratives. The volume offers insights into the diverse literatures of Eastern Europe and their ways of depicting the area’s contested heritage.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311071387X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477
Book Description
Even seventy-five years after the end of World War II, the commemorative cultures surrounding the War and the Holocaust in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe are anything but fixed. The fierce debates on how to deal with the past among the newly constituted nation states in these regions have already received much attention by scholars in cultural and memory studies. The present volume posits that literature as a medium can help us understand the shifting attitudes towards World War II and the Holocaust in post-Communist Europe in recent years. These shifts point to new commemorative cultures shaping up ‘after memory’. Contemporary literary representations of World War II and the Holocaust in Eastern Europe do not merely extend or replace older practices of remembrance and testimony, but reflect on these now defunct or superseded narratives. New narratives of remembrance are conditioned by a fundamentally new social and political context, one that emerged from the devaluation of socialist commemorative rituals and as a response to the loss of private and family memory narratives. The volume offers insights into the diverse literatures of Eastern Europe and their ways of depicting the area’s contested heritage.
Salute to the Romanian Jews in America and Canada, 1850-2010
Author: Vladimir F. Wertsman
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453512802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
TRANSLATION FROM ROMANIAN INTO ENGLISH NEW YORK MAGAZINE No. 706, Wednesday, February 2, 2011, Cultural Page 16 University Professor and Doctor Aurel Sasu, HOMAGE TO THE JEWS FROM THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, Commentary regarding the volume SALUTE TO THE ROMANIAN JEWS IN AMERICA AND CANADA, 1850-2010: HISTORY, ACHIEVEMENTS, AND BIOGRAPHIES by Vladimir F. Wertsman The publication of SALUTE TO THE ROMANIAN JEWS IN AMERICA AND CANADA,1850-2010: HISTORY, ACHIEVEMENTS, AND BIOGRAPHIES, XLibris , Bloomington, IN, 2010, 287 pp. by Vladimir F. Wertsman, one of the most valued, respected and dedicated researchers on multiculturalism over the Ocean, was no surprise to anybody in light of the authors previous triptych: THE ROMANIANS IN AMERICA, 1748-1974: A CHNRONOLOGY AND FACT BOOK(1975), THE ROMANIANS IN AMERICA AND CANADA: A GUIDE TO INFORMTION SOURCES, (1980), and THE ROMANIANS IN THE UNITED STATES ANADA CANADA: A GUIDE TO ANCESTRY AND HERITAGE RESEARCH (2003). All of these titles reflect the authors older concerns regarding immigration, integration, and identity preserved via the values of organic tradition. Those who know this passionate book lover (he served many years as senior librarian at the New York Public Library) also know how much he is proud of his Romanian education (he is a graduate of the University "A.I. Cuza" Law School, 1953) and the prestige of Romanian people of culture abroad in whose spirit he was formed. Established in the USA in 1967, the future author did not forget the depth of his primary sources and his Romanian heritage. Regardless how often he appears in the Romanian community, he is admired for his work, advice, and wisdom. His main message is friendship, mutual understanding and respect. The above mentioned volume on Romanian Jews in America and Canada starts with a "microchronology" of Romanias two millennia Jewish community going back to the year 70 AD, when some Jews found asylum in Dacia after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Under King Decebal, Jews are permitted to reside without any restriction. They were merchants, translators, and purveyors, Matei Basarab offers asylum to Hungarian Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism, under Alexander the Good and Stephen the Great, the Jews are free to live in any part of Moldavia. Also, Stephen the Great and his son Bogdan Voda kept Isaac Benjamin Shor as their logofat (chancellor). In the 16th century, first Sephardic communities are mentioned in Bucharest and Craiova, also Jewish stable communities are mentioned in Iasi (with a synagogue and cemetery), Suceava, Botosani, Sibiu, Cluj. Vasile Lupu (17th century) accepts several Jewish doctors and pharmacists at his court, Constantin Brancoveanu will do the same one century later. In 1665, a document mentions that along with Valachians and Serbs there were Jews in Michael the Braves Army. Constantin Mavrocordat accords fiscal immunity to Jews settled in Herta, Balti, Orhei, Ocna, and Harlau. From DESCRIPTIO MOLDAVIAE (1717) by Dimitrie Cantemir, we find that Jews could build wooden synagogues without any restrictions. Starting with the 18th century, mixed musical bands (lautari) are formed; they consisted of Romanians, Jews, and Gypsies. After the hardships endured by Jews during the Russian-Turkish War (1769-1774), Alexandru Mavrocordat and Nicolae Mavrogheni accord special protection to the Jewish population. In 1803, there were about 3,000 Jewish families in Moldova, fifty years later, the Jewish population increased to more than 130,000. In the Proclamation of Islaz (1848), the rights of the Jewish community are explicitly mentioned: "the emancipation of the Israelites and political rights for all compatriots of other creeds". In 1852, the first Jewish school is opened in Bucharest, and in 1847 appears ISRAELITUL ROMAN, the first newspaper of the Jewish communities from Moldavia and Walachia
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453512802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
TRANSLATION FROM ROMANIAN INTO ENGLISH NEW YORK MAGAZINE No. 706, Wednesday, February 2, 2011, Cultural Page 16 University Professor and Doctor Aurel Sasu, HOMAGE TO THE JEWS FROM THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, Commentary regarding the volume SALUTE TO THE ROMANIAN JEWS IN AMERICA AND CANADA, 1850-2010: HISTORY, ACHIEVEMENTS, AND BIOGRAPHIES by Vladimir F. Wertsman The publication of SALUTE TO THE ROMANIAN JEWS IN AMERICA AND CANADA,1850-2010: HISTORY, ACHIEVEMENTS, AND BIOGRAPHIES, XLibris , Bloomington, IN, 2010, 287 pp. by Vladimir F. Wertsman, one of the most valued, respected and dedicated researchers on multiculturalism over the Ocean, was no surprise to anybody in light of the authors previous triptych: THE ROMANIANS IN AMERICA, 1748-1974: A CHNRONOLOGY AND FACT BOOK(1975), THE ROMANIANS IN AMERICA AND CANADA: A GUIDE TO INFORMTION SOURCES, (1980), and THE ROMANIANS IN THE UNITED STATES ANADA CANADA: A GUIDE TO ANCESTRY AND HERITAGE RESEARCH (2003). All of these titles reflect the authors older concerns regarding immigration, integration, and identity preserved via the values of organic tradition. Those who know this passionate book lover (he served many years as senior librarian at the New York Public Library) also know how much he is proud of his Romanian education (he is a graduate of the University "A.I. Cuza" Law School, 1953) and the prestige of Romanian people of culture abroad in whose spirit he was formed. Established in the USA in 1967, the future author did not forget the depth of his primary sources and his Romanian heritage. Regardless how often he appears in the Romanian community, he is admired for his work, advice, and wisdom. His main message is friendship, mutual understanding and respect. The above mentioned volume on Romanian Jews in America and Canada starts with a "microchronology" of Romanias two millennia Jewish community going back to the year 70 AD, when some Jews found asylum in Dacia after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Under King Decebal, Jews are permitted to reside without any restriction. They were merchants, translators, and purveyors, Matei Basarab offers asylum to Hungarian Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism, under Alexander the Good and Stephen the Great, the Jews are free to live in any part of Moldavia. Also, Stephen the Great and his son Bogdan Voda kept Isaac Benjamin Shor as their logofat (chancellor). In the 16th century, first Sephardic communities are mentioned in Bucharest and Craiova, also Jewish stable communities are mentioned in Iasi (with a synagogue and cemetery), Suceava, Botosani, Sibiu, Cluj. Vasile Lupu (17th century) accepts several Jewish doctors and pharmacists at his court, Constantin Brancoveanu will do the same one century later. In 1665, a document mentions that along with Valachians and Serbs there were Jews in Michael the Braves Army. Constantin Mavrocordat accords fiscal immunity to Jews settled in Herta, Balti, Orhei, Ocna, and Harlau. From DESCRIPTIO MOLDAVIAE (1717) by Dimitrie Cantemir, we find that Jews could build wooden synagogues without any restrictions. Starting with the 18th century, mixed musical bands (lautari) are formed; they consisted of Romanians, Jews, and Gypsies. After the hardships endured by Jews during the Russian-Turkish War (1769-1774), Alexandru Mavrocordat and Nicolae Mavrogheni accord special protection to the Jewish population. In 1803, there were about 3,000 Jewish families in Moldova, fifty years later, the Jewish population increased to more than 130,000. In the Proclamation of Islaz (1848), the rights of the Jewish community are explicitly mentioned: "the emancipation of the Israelites and political rights for all compatriots of other creeds". In 1852, the first Jewish school is opened in Bucharest, and in 1847 appears ISRAELITUL ROMAN, the first newspaper of the Jewish communities from Moldavia and Walachia
America's Soul in Balance
Author: Gregory Wallance
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1608322947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
After America entered World War II, a genuine opportunity arose to save at least 70,000 Romanian Jews who had been deported to the killing fields of Transnistria. This title presents the true story of the senior officials of the US State Department at the height of World War II, whom some accused of being accomplices of Hitler.
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
ISBN: 1608322947
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345
Book Description
After America entered World War II, a genuine opportunity arose to save at least 70,000 Romanian Jews who had been deported to the killing fields of Transnistria. This title presents the true story of the senior officials of the US State Department at the height of World War II, whom some accused of being accomplices of Hitler.
Re-examining the Holocaust through Literature
Author: Aukje Kluge
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443808318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395
Book Description
In the late 1980s, Holocaust literature emerged as a provocative, but poorly defined, scholarly field. The essays in this volume reflect the increasingly international and pluridisciplinary nature of this scholarship and the widening of the definition of Holocaust literature to include comic books, fiction, film, and poetry, as well as the more traditional diaries, memoirs, and journals. Ten contributors from four countries engage issues of authenticity, evangelicalism, morality, representation, personal experience, and wish-fulfillment in Holocaust literature, which have been the subject of controversies in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Of interest to students and instructors of antisemitism, national and comparative literatures, theater, film, history, literary criticism, religion, and Holocaust studies, this book also contains an extensive bibliography with references in over twenty languages which seeks to inspire further research in an international context.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443808318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 395
Book Description
In the late 1980s, Holocaust literature emerged as a provocative, but poorly defined, scholarly field. The essays in this volume reflect the increasingly international and pluridisciplinary nature of this scholarship and the widening of the definition of Holocaust literature to include comic books, fiction, film, and poetry, as well as the more traditional diaries, memoirs, and journals. Ten contributors from four countries engage issues of authenticity, evangelicalism, morality, representation, personal experience, and wish-fulfillment in Holocaust literature, which have been the subject of controversies in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Of interest to students and instructors of antisemitism, national and comparative literatures, theater, film, history, literary criticism, religion, and Holocaust studies, this book also contains an extensive bibliography with references in over twenty languages which seeks to inspire further research in an international context.
So They Remember
Author: Maksim Goldenshteyn
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806190582
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
When we think of Nazi camps, names such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau come instantly to mind. Yet the history of the Holocaust extends beyond those notorious sites. In the former territory of Transnistria, located in occupied Soviet Ukraine and governed by Nazi Germany’s Romanian allies, many Jews perished due to disease, starvation, and other horrific conditions. Through an intimate blending of memoir, history, and reportage, So They Remember illuminates this oft-overlooked chapter of the Holocaust. In December 1941, with the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in its sixth month, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy named Motl Braverman, along with family members, was uprooted from his Ukrainian hometown and herded to the remote village of Pechera, the site of a Romanian death camp. Author Maksim Goldenshteyn, the grandson of Motl, first learned of his family’s wartime experiences in 2012. Through tireless research, Goldenshteyn spent years unraveling the story of Motl, his family members, and their fellow prisoners. The author here renders their story through the eyes of Motl and other children, who decades later would bear witness to the traumas they suffered. Until now, Romanian historians and survivors have served as almost the only chroniclers of the Holocaust in Transnistria. Goldenshteyn’s account, based on interviews with Soviet-born relatives and other survivors, archival documents, and memoirs, is among the first full-length books to spotlight the Pechera camp, ominously known by its prisoners as Mertvaya Petlya, or the “Death Noose.” Unfortunately, as the author explains, the Pechera camp was only one of some two hundred concentration sites spread across Transnistria, where local Ukrainian policemen often conspired with Romanian guards to brutalize the prisoners. In March 1944, the Red Army liberated Motl’s family and fellow captives. Yet for decades, according to the author, they were silenced by Soviet policies enacted to erase all memory of Jewish wartime suffering. So They Remember gives voice to this long-repressed history and documents how the events at Pechera and other surrounding camps and ghettos would continue to shape remaining survivors and their descendants.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806190582
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
When we think of Nazi camps, names such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau come instantly to mind. Yet the history of the Holocaust extends beyond those notorious sites. In the former territory of Transnistria, located in occupied Soviet Ukraine and governed by Nazi Germany’s Romanian allies, many Jews perished due to disease, starvation, and other horrific conditions. Through an intimate blending of memoir, history, and reportage, So They Remember illuminates this oft-overlooked chapter of the Holocaust. In December 1941, with the German-led invasion of the Soviet Union in its sixth month, a twelve-year-old Jewish boy named Motl Braverman, along with family members, was uprooted from his Ukrainian hometown and herded to the remote village of Pechera, the site of a Romanian death camp. Author Maksim Goldenshteyn, the grandson of Motl, first learned of his family’s wartime experiences in 2012. Through tireless research, Goldenshteyn spent years unraveling the story of Motl, his family members, and their fellow prisoners. The author here renders their story through the eyes of Motl and other children, who decades later would bear witness to the traumas they suffered. Until now, Romanian historians and survivors have served as almost the only chroniclers of the Holocaust in Transnistria. Goldenshteyn’s account, based on interviews with Soviet-born relatives and other survivors, archival documents, and memoirs, is among the first full-length books to spotlight the Pechera camp, ominously known by its prisoners as Mertvaya Petlya, or the “Death Noose.” Unfortunately, as the author explains, the Pechera camp was only one of some two hundred concentration sites spread across Transnistria, where local Ukrainian policemen often conspired with Romanian guards to brutalize the prisoners. In March 1944, the Red Army liberated Motl’s family and fellow captives. Yet for decades, according to the author, they were silenced by Soviet policies enacted to erase all memory of Jewish wartime suffering. So They Remember gives voice to this long-repressed history and documents how the events at Pechera and other surrounding camps and ghettos would continue to shape remaining survivors and their descendants.
Still Here
Author: June Hersh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692507346
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
An volume of photos of Holocaust Survivors and WWII Liberators with accompanying inspirational quotes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692507346
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
An volume of photos of Holocaust Survivors and WWII Liberators with accompanying inspirational quotes
Right to Remember - A Handbook for Education with Young People on the Roma Genocide
Author: Council of Europe
Publisher: Council of Europe
ISBN: 9287179689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
Right to Remember is a self-contained educational resource for all those wishing to promote a deeper awareness of the Roma Genocide and combat discrimination. The handbook is based on the principles of human rights education, and places remembrance as an aspect of learning about, through and for human rights. Strengthening the identity of Roma young people is a priority for the Roma Youth Action Plan of the Council of Europe. This implies the creation of an environment where they can grow up free from discrimination and confident about their identity and future perspectives, while appreciating their history and their plural cultural backgrounds and affiliations. The Roma Genocide carried out before and during the Second World War has deeply impacted on Roma communities across Europe and plays a central role in understanding the prevailing antigypsyim and discrimination against Roma. Learning about the Genocide is very important for all young people. For Roma young people it is also a way to understand what was perpetrated against their communities, and to help them to com to terms with their identity and situation today. Involving young people, including Roma youth, in researching, discussing and discovering the meanings of the Roma Genocide is a way to involve them as agents and actors in their own understanding of human rights and of history. Right to Remember includes educational activities, as well as ideas for commemoration events, and information about the Genocide and its relevance to the situation of the Roma people today. It has been designed primarily for youth workers in non-formal settings, but it will be useful for anyone working in education, including in schools.
Publisher: Council of Europe
ISBN: 9287179689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Book Description
Right to Remember is a self-contained educational resource for all those wishing to promote a deeper awareness of the Roma Genocide and combat discrimination. The handbook is based on the principles of human rights education, and places remembrance as an aspect of learning about, through and for human rights. Strengthening the identity of Roma young people is a priority for the Roma Youth Action Plan of the Council of Europe. This implies the creation of an environment where they can grow up free from discrimination and confident about their identity and future perspectives, while appreciating their history and their plural cultural backgrounds and affiliations. The Roma Genocide carried out before and during the Second World War has deeply impacted on Roma communities across Europe and plays a central role in understanding the prevailing antigypsyim and discrimination against Roma. Learning about the Genocide is very important for all young people. For Roma young people it is also a way to understand what was perpetrated against their communities, and to help them to com to terms with their identity and situation today. Involving young people, including Roma youth, in researching, discussing and discovering the meanings of the Roma Genocide is a way to involve them as agents and actors in their own understanding of human rights and of history. Right to Remember includes educational activities, as well as ideas for commemoration events, and information about the Genocide and its relevance to the situation of the Roma people today. It has been designed primarily for youth workers in non-formal settings, but it will be useful for anyone working in education, including in schools.
Black Days and Nights
Author: Leon Rajninger
Publisher: Gefen Books
ISBN: 9789652296344
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
When Leon was eight years old, his grandfather took him to a one-man stage performance titled, "Papirena Kinder", or Paper Children. It told the story of a bereaved old man who, despite having raised five children, had been abandoned by all of them in his old age. All he had of them were their childhood photographs from a time long past- a time when he was their hero. This wistful tale shaped a deep impression in young Leon and set the stage for how he would fight for his life, and his parents' survival, during the years which shortly followed- as Germany set the stage for The Holocaust. Leon Rajninger completed this book as a youthful 82-year-old grandfather, gifted with longevity after losing most of his childhood to Nazi persecution in his native Romania. Mindful that the number of eye witnesses to this tragedy is steadily diminishing, he wrote this book to tell his story to a generation of children and young adults who may never have heard the words, The Holocaust. Leon has appeared as a Survivor on the floor of the California State Assembly and told this story at The Law School at USF and to students at high schools in San Francisco where he lives with his wife, Eva, and visits often with his loving children and grandchildren.
Publisher: Gefen Books
ISBN: 9789652296344
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
When Leon was eight years old, his grandfather took him to a one-man stage performance titled, "Papirena Kinder", or Paper Children. It told the story of a bereaved old man who, despite having raised five children, had been abandoned by all of them in his old age. All he had of them were their childhood photographs from a time long past- a time when he was their hero. This wistful tale shaped a deep impression in young Leon and set the stage for how he would fight for his life, and his parents' survival, during the years which shortly followed- as Germany set the stage for The Holocaust. Leon Rajninger completed this book as a youthful 82-year-old grandfather, gifted with longevity after losing most of his childhood to Nazi persecution in his native Romania. Mindful that the number of eye witnesses to this tragedy is steadily diminishing, he wrote this book to tell his story to a generation of children and young adults who may never have heard the words, The Holocaust. Leon has appeared as a Survivor on the floor of the California State Assembly and told this story at The Law School at USF and to students at high schools in San Francisco where he lives with his wife, Eva, and visits often with his loving children and grandchildren.