“..Jews were compelled to establish relations with an alien ..hostile government that regarded them as subhuman ..fit only for exploitation and extermination. ..human values in which they believed and on which they had built their lives tottered and collapsed. In this cruel reality ..Vilna Jewry struggled to survive and seek rescue. ..daily struggle was for…

January 20th. 1939 Hitler sacks Hjalmar Schacht from Reichsbank Presidency. January 20th. 1941 Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, informed Pope Pius XII of the looming threat to 60,000 Vienna Jews facing deportation. “..In ..labor columns, separated by gender, able-bodied Jews will be brought to those regions to build roads, whereby a large number will…

“..Having survived many tragedies during ..years of The Holocaust I met my freedom with an empty heart. I saw ..vastness of orphanhood and ruins and ashes in the post-war Warsaw ..Poland ..but nothing around me or inside me. At last ..I held a whole loaf of bread in my hands and could slice off it…

“..One of our companies held out for 40 minutes and another ..for more than 6 hours. ..mine set in ..brushmakers area exploded. Several of our companies attacked the dispersing Germans. Our losses in manpower are minimal. That is also an achievement. Yechiel fell. He fell a hero ..at ..machine gun. I feel that great things…

“..ought we not ..from time to time ..open ourselves up to cosmic sadness. Give your sorrow all ..space and shelter in yourself that is its due ..for if everyone bears his grief honestly and courageously ..sorrow that now fills ..World will abate. But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow ..and…

“..The last Jewish settlement, which had existed under relatively better conditions, was Upper Eastern Silesia. Some three weeks ago 7,000 Jews were exiled. They are being killed in Auschwitz. They are being shot and incinerated. In the coming weeks, our district will be without Jews. When you receive this letter, none of us will be…

“..Murder of 6,000,000 Jews must never be reduced to a statistic.”  Simon Wiesenthal. This is but a reminder that one of the most meaningful sentiments ever to emerge from the ranks of those Jewish Survivors who Survived is this. Sunday January 15th. 1939  “..Church ..always regarded living side by side with Jews ..as long as…

The Day of My Great Disaster. (These are mere excerpts from a wonderous Poem, filled with loss, grief, the unknowing form of both which leaves Yitzhak lost in the wilderness of a disaster barely imaginable. Today we have difficulty coming to terms with what we now know, without ever trying to imagine what 6,000,000 Jews…

Wednesday, January 13th. 1943 Dearest Kitty, This morning I was constantly interrupted, and as a result I haven’t been able to finish a single thing I’ve begun. We have a new pastime, namely, filling packages with powdered gravy. The gravy is one of Gies & Co.’s products. Mr. Kugler hasn’t been able to find anyone…

Primo Levi “..I thought about ..essential ambiguity of ..messages each of us leaves behind ..from birth to death ..and of our deep inability to reconstitute a person from them ..man who lives departing from ..man who writes ..anyone who writes ..even if only on walls ..writes in a code that is his alone ..and that…