When They Came to Take My Father: Voices of the Holocaust

Description

Never in human history has there been an event more horrifying than the Holocaust-the human loss inconceivable, the aftershocks felt for generations. But in the midst of the misery was forged a strength of spirit and humanity that shows in the faces and stories of survivors. Captured here with clarity and truth are fifty images of survival, portraits of the men and women who actually lived through the brutality. The tales of survival vary: the misery of day-to-day existence in the camps; the luxury and guilt of passing as a non-Jew; the ever-mounting dread of having a hiding place raided by the SS; the chaos of families fleeing, broken and scattered. Punctuating the narratives throughout the book are impassioned essays by Abe Foxman, Yaffa Eliach, Anne Roiphe, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Eva Fogelman, and others. An introduction by National Book Award-winner Robert Jay Lifton opens the text. Taken together, this powerful collection of words and images forms a moving testimony to human dignity and a record of history that must never be forgotten.

Mark Seliger is an award-winning photographer who spent ten years as chief photographer for Rolling Stone. He is now at Conde Nast and also shoots frequently for Italian Vogue, L'Uomo Vogue, and German Vogue. He lives in New York City. Leora Kahn is the founder of Proof: Media for Social Justice. She is currently a fellow in Genocide Studies Center at Yale University. She has been a photo editor for the past 25 years. She lives in Larchmont, New York. Rachel Hager, herself a child of survivors, is editor-in-chief of Consumer Reports Health.org. She has also worked as senior editor at Parents magazine and editorial director of ReadersDigest.com. She lives in New York City. Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist and author whose works include Nazi Doctors and Witness to an Extreme Century. He lives in New York City.