***Gerda Weissmann Klein. All But My Life. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957, 1995 (expanded edition). The following is the preface to the memoir:

"As I finish the last chapter of my book, I feel at peace, at last. I have discharged a burden, and paid a debt to many nameless heroes, resting in their unmarked graves. For I am haunted by the thought that I might be the only one left to tell their story.

Happy in my new life, I have penned the last sentence of the past. I have written my story, with tears and with love, in the hope that my children, safely asleep in their cribs, should not awake from a nightmare and find it to be reality."

***Leo Bretholz. Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe. New York: Random House, 1998. The following is from the book’s acknowledgments:

There was much encouragement by friends and relatives for me to write my memoirs. It bespeaks many concerns–a period of my life which bears remembering, retelling, and reminiscing. It is based on profound reflection and introspection, and it needs to be told if for no other reason than to learn a lesson from it.

It is offered as a message to those who are willing and eager to apply eternal vigilance, lest our freedoms be lost."

***Suzanne Loebl. At the Mercy of Strangers: Growing Up on the Edge of the Holocaust. Pacifica, CA: Pacifica Press, 1997. The following statements come from the book’s acknowledgments and its dedication.

"Even for a published author it takes special courage to tell her own story. It has taken me years to complete At the Mercy of Strangers. The memoir, which incorporates the diary I kept more than fifty years ago, owes its existence to many individuals who through their interest, love, and concern encouraged me not to let the venture die."

"Having to be grateful is hard to cope with, especially if it is for something as fundamental as saving one’s own life, so I tried to minimize the danger I and the people who sheltered me faced. In some ways this was easy, because to a certain extent life was drearily mundane. It was precisely the juxtaposition of the daily dullness with the horror of the Holocaust that was characteristic of the crazy time I was living in."

***Misha Defonseca. Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years. Bluebell, PA: Mount Ivy Press, 1997. The following excerpt comes from the introduction.

"Looking back now, from the comfort of my living room, it is hard to imagine the scale of the human devastation–the whole world at war. Who can conceive of so much death? Between 1939 and 1945, according to some historians, fifty million lives lost, six million belonged to those I called my people . . . Who can believe the Holocaust? And yet it happened.

I believe, because I am a witness.

No one who was alive at that time was untouched by the Second World War; many, including myself, were scarred forever. I remember as clearly as yesterday the moment the war touched my life. I was seven years old and on that day my childhood came to an end."

***Agate Nesaule. A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile. New York: Soho Press, 1995. The following information comes from the author’s note.

"I have uncertainties about this story. I was only seven when some of the events took place, and there is so much that I have forgotten or I never knew or understood. But I have not been able to compare my recollections with others. No one in my family wants to talk about the war; they may have silent images, but they tell no stories. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot force myself to do research. I can only bear to read novels, as if they were safer, not factual accounts of the period.

"I know that memory itself is unreliable: it works by selecting, disguising, distorting. Others would recall these events differently. I cannot guarantee historical accuracy; I can only tell what I remember. I have had to speculate and guess, even to invent in order to give the story coherence and shape. I have also changed some names and identifying details to protect the privacy of others. . . .

"Why tell this story now, so many years after World War II? In all wars the shelling eventually stops, most wounds heal, memories fade. But wartime terror is only the beginning of stories. The small boy with arms raised in the face of guns, the girl forced to witness rape, the emaciated children begging for food, if they survive, all have to learn how to live with their terrible knowledge. For more than forty years, my own life was constricted by shame, anger and guilt. I was saved by the stories of others, by therapy, dreams and love. My story shows healing is possible."

***Beatrice Muchman. Never to Be Forgotten: a Young Girl’s Holocaust Memoir. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing, 1997.

"Presenting the letters and my diary and writing about these years seemed at first a way of giving my parents and the events that surrounded their tragic deaths a place to rest. It was also a way to keep their spirit clearly remembered for my daughter and any children that she may have. But it soon became much more than that. It became a deeply personal and troubling journey to my past, bringing back the fear and pain I felt as a little girl abandoned by her parents. As a child, I had not grasped the terrible circumstances and agonizing choices that my parents faced. In making the courageous decision to give up their only child and hide her from the Nazis, they also had been forced to keep me hidden from seeing their love."