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My mother was saved in 1943 by an Ukranian "Sabotnik" farmer, who found her and 3 other children half-frozen in the forest near L'vov, Galizia. He hid them in a small cellar under the living room; he, his wife and their six children, were all risking their lives by refusing to become indifferent to other humans' lives. He was one of the Riteous of Nations, a very noble person, and in a way he was my father - not less than my late beloved biological father. I am going to look for Clara's book and read it.

I have the honor and privilege to know Clara Kramer. She is an extraordirnary woman who has dedicated her life to teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust and insuring it never happens again. Her story is remarkable. I encourage everyone to read her book.

I am not a Jew. But no matter how often I hear these horrible tales of man's inhumanity to man, my heart weeps a little. And how wonderful the kindnesses of those who did not have to be kind seem -- making my heart weep and sing at the same time.

Yes, first the Red Army came and the commissars and took the home because my mother's family was considered "bourgeois." Many others were deported deep into the USSR, to Central Asia.
Two years later the Nazi attack on the SOviet Union and the Jews were then herded into what became the ghetto. And finally the liquidation. First her two brothers were taken and never seen again. Later my mother and her child and first husband escaped to the forest, with my grandmother shot in the escape attempt. My mother who looked "aryan" went to forage for food from the forest, and when she returned her four year old baby and husband who had remained in the forest were gone and presumably killed by the Nazis. Never seen again. My mother was taken in by the Christian farmers and spent 18 months in that hole in the ground. AFter the war I was born in the Bavarian DP camp after where my mother had met my father, who himself had escaped from the Red Army after the Battle of Berlin. In 1949 we were allowed to come to America.

Extraordinary.

We are so blessed to have you to tell of this terrible time. G-d bless you and all of your family and those who risked their lives to protect you.

I remember well my late mother's friend, Kuba, telling similar tales of being taken prisoner by the Soviet soldiers, only to have his family killed by the Nazis. It is a sad testament to our world that one evil was only outdone by another.

My mother too just barely survived the war being hidden by a Christian ("Sabotnik") Polish farm family in a pit for nearly two years with four other Jews. Were it not for about 50-100,000 of such "Righteous Gentiles" who REALLY put their lives on the line to save Jews, there would be virtually not a single survivor to come out, nor children thereof such as myself, to tell these harrowing tales. They saved the 10% or some such 300,000 or so Jews who managed the survive the horror in Eastern Europe. May God bless them and their families in Paradise.