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FOREWORD
For over half a century my memories of all that took place between May, 1944, when my family and I were deported to Auschwitz, and April, 1945, when I left Muhldorf, stayed buried within me. My goal, after all, was to get on with my life. I'd come to know many concentration camp survivors whose lives were never again normal, and I vowed not to become one of them. I married, raised a family, and enjoyed several successful careers. As the wounds of my adolescence healed, though, I yearned to tell my story.
One obstacle remained. My beloved Uncle Karoly (my late father's brother) was still alive in Budapest, and I had a terrible secret from Auschwitz to keep from him.
In 1996, Uncle Karoly died, at 92. Only then was I free to tell my story. The secret that kept me silent so long is finally revealed within these pages, since it can hurt him no more.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my parents, and above all, to the memory of my other brother Andris. They, together with so many mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, were innocent victims of human history's worst genocide, the Nazi war machine, within whose path millions were ground to death.
In recent years, it has become popular in certain political or even intellectual circles to refute the existence of the Holocaust altogether. As has often been said, however, those forgetting history are doomed to repeat it. Make no mistake: the Holocaust is history.
I know. I was there.
Stephen "Pista" Nasser
Las Vegas, Nevada
May, 2003 |
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