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From Broken Glass
- My Story of Finding Hope in Hitler's Death Camps to Inspire a New Generation
- Narrated by: Ray Flynn, Robert Blumenfeld, Michael Ross
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
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Summary
From the survivor of 10 Nazi concentration camps who went on to create the New England Holocaust Memorial, an inspiring memoir about finding strength in the face of despair.
On August 14, 2017, two days after a white-supremacist activist rammed his car into a group of anti-Fascist protestors, killing one and injuring 19, the New England Holocaust Memorial was vandalized for the second time in as many months. At the base of one of its fifty-four-foot glass towers lay a pile of shards. For Steve Ross, the image called to mind Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass in which German authorities and civilians ransacked Jewish-owned buildings with sledgehammers.
Ross was eight years old when the Nazis invaded his Polish village, forcing his family to flee. He spent his next six years in a day-to-day struggle to survive the notorious camps in which he was imprisoned, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau among them. When he was finally liberated, he no longer knew how old he was, he was literally starving to death, and everyone in his family save for his brother had been killed.
Ross learned in his darkest experiences - by observing and enduring inconceivable cruelty as well as by receiving compassion from caring fellow prisoners - the human capacity to rise above even the bleakest circumstances. He decided to devote himself to underprivileged youth, aiming to ensure that despite the obstacles in their lives they would never experience suffering like he had. Over the course of a nearly 40-year career as a psychologist working in the Boston city schools, that was exactly what he did. At the end of his career, he spearheaded the creation of the New England Holocaust Memorial, a site millions of people, including young students, visit every year.
Equal parts heartrending, brutal, and inspiring, From Broken Glass is the story of how one man survived the unimaginable and inspired a new generation to help forge a more compassionate world.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"From Broken Glass is an opportunity to spend time in the presence of an extraordinary man. No one I know of has ever responded to unimaginable brutality with such generosity of deed and spirit, recounted here with understated eloquence." (Congressman Barney Frank, New York Times best-selling author of Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage)
"Steve Ross emerges as a resilient character who is determined not to allow the enemies of the past to re-emerge in the present unchallenged; his book opens with a cri de coeur on Charlottesville, and it ends with a defiant testimonial: 'I am a survivor.' A worthy memoir of dark times, full of practical lessons for resistance and community organizing today." (Kirkus Reviews)
"From Broken Glass is a captivating and deeply personal story of a young boy's experience in the Holocaust, and the ways that event shaped his life as an adult in America. Ross's remarkably detailed account stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is relevant to this day, a reminder of what can happen when we lose sight of the humanity of others in society." (Senator Dianne Feinstein)
What listeners say about From Broken Glass
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- Debbie
- 27-11-18
Beautifully told, harrowing account of man’s inhumanity to man
Schmulek had a perfectly happy childhood, & a life as pleasant as any of ours. Then the Nazis came, and with unspeakable cruelty, all but wiped out a generation of our fellow beings. But Steve Ross, as he became, decided that it should not be unspoken: his account is gruelling & often hard to hear, but it happened. And still happens now. When will we ever learn?
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