An excerpt from The Grayling:

We heard stories of men and women who had escaped from the back of trucks. There were vivid and terrifying stores of the Nazi machines, which were used at the gas chambers. There were stories also told of waking up in the depths of dead lying in deep pits. Some told us of the untold horrors they faced in the woods while hiding, and of the dying from disease, pestilence, and the dying from hunger in the woods. Few survived this torturous existence. And in the absence of any worshiping to God because it was forbidden, those victims of untold atrocities still kept their faith. We still kept our faith and believed more in our Judaism.

This time we were lucky. We did not lose this game of ultimate death with the Germans. After a few days, my father took Sam and they wandered in the dark by themselves, knocking on doors to see who amongst us had survived. We had all lived near one another. After the atrocities, no one knew who lived next to whom.

It is difficult for us, as Americans, to imagine the sheer, mind-numbing horror of being forced out of our homes and away from our families and friends. It is next to impossible for those of us who were not there, in 1944 and 1945, to see the camps, to know what its like to see the assembly-line style extermination of people.

It is difficult, but necessary. We must learn our lessons from the past. One of the ways we can do that is by reading the stories of that time, of seeing how those brave people persevered and survived.

It is said that history repeats itself if we forget about it; we must never forget.