Tuchman recounts dramatic tales of his often brutal, always compelling personal experiences as a youth in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust and in its aftermath. The story carries us from the Przemy l ghetto and slave labor in the Auschwitz death camp to his experiences attending university in post-war Germany, filled with characters both good and evil, and some even heroic, all of whom played a role in his survival. These are tales that cannot be told often enough, as every voice in them adds a necessary thread to the fabric of one of history's most horrific events. "Dr. Marcel Tuchman's memoir is simultaneously a chronicle of despicable savagery and miraculous survival... It is also a tale of heroic self-sacrifice and indomitable spirit for survival... Finally, there is renewal of life that followed liberation…” [Abraham L. Gitlow, Professor and Dean Emeritus, New York University] "Every now and then, a book echoes the deepest chords of our shared humanity. I read Dr. Marcel Tuchman's remarkable story of enduring through the Holocaust as a tale of the triumph of the human spirit under conditions of unimaginable suffering... and what incredible odds Dr. Tuchman encountered and overcame!" [Daniel Yankelovich, Cofounder and President of Public Agenda] "Dr. Tuchman's memoir is about Hell and its vestibule, but unlike Dante's, it is about the living, not the dead, on their way to an unearned fate.” [Bernard S. Solomon, Professor Emeritus, Classical and Oriental Languages, Queens College]
