When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, Vera Schiff and her family were sent to Theresienstadt. Touted as the "model ghetto" for propaganda purposes, as well as to deceive Red Cross inspectors, it was in fact a holding camp for famous Jews--in case the world was to inquire. For the rest, however, it was the last stop on the way to the gas chambers. Those "lucky" enough to remain faced slave labor, starvation and disease. Shiff's intimate narrative of endurance recounts her family's three years in Theresienstadt, the challenges of life under postwar communism, and her escape to the nascent and turbulent state of Israel.

Originally constructed in the 18th century as a military barracks by Austrian Emperor Joseph II, Theresienstadt (now Terezin) was used as a ghetto and concentration camp by the Nazis early in World War II in their ruse of peaceful resettlement of the Jews of Europe. Tens of thousands of inmates perished at the camp and many more were sent from there to die at Auschwitz and Treblinka. Presented in a two-fold format, this book features the poignant stories of individuals who were transported to Theresienstadt, as related by Holocaust survivor Vera Schiff, whose entire family was sent to the camp in 1942. Following each narrative, Schiff engages in a wide-ranging discussion with ethics professor Jeff McLaughlin regarding the events of the story, within the broader political, religious and cultural context of what is now the Czech Republic.

It is important to remember not just what the Holocaust was but to remember the individuals who were the subjects of unrelenting Nazi brutalities. Written by a survivor about the people she knew and cared for, these eight stories fight against the depiction of Jews as victims and victims only, and individualize a tragedy that is too often abstracted into dates and statistics. Amidst the dramatic narrative, there is a brutal honesty and frankness that makes these stories far more infuriating, sad, and shocking than any fictional attempt to convey what it was like to be human in such inhuman circumstances. These biographies remind readers of the consequences of hate upon the fragile beauty and complexity of human life.