In the midst of his chronicle of unparalleled cruelty, there are moments of tenderness from the kindnesses of strangers at the risk of their own lives, to the sacrifices of so many for the sake of love, duty, or honor. Unfortunately, these moments are just tiny flickering sparks of light in a dark sea, incident after inci- dent of murder, cruelty, and humiliation, naming names, dates, times, places of perpetrators, collaborators, victims, and bystanders. The events are now more than sixty-five years old, but Leon Schagrin has been blessed (or cursed) with an almost photographic memory. If this were the sad fate of only one man, it would be terrible enough. But from the dawn of so-called ‘civilization’ to the present day, countless people have experienced the kind of suffering borne by Leon Schagrin, and countless more have no doubt suffered worse, from the Inquisition’s rack to the ‘ad- vances’ of modern civilization such as gulags, death factories, and IEDs. Yet, only a minute number of people have lived to tell about it. If a novelist, or a screenwriter, needed a character who could tell the story of the Holocaust in Poland, they would be hard put to find a better character than Leon Schagrin, if only because of his Zelig or Forrest Gump-like presence at so many pivotal moments. It’s easy to say why this book had to be written. First and foremost, we live in a world where Holocaust denial is rampant. Every witness account is a brick in the bulwark of historical truth. Every witness statement helps to fill gaps in the historical record and enables historians to corroborate, verify, or rule out specific allegations. The philosopher, George Santayana, once said, “Those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Holocaust denial is a po- litical weapon used to demonize Jews and delegitimize the Jewish state. There are many other good reasons for writing this book that Leon has asked me to share with you on his behalf, which I outline below. But, before going there, let it be clear, commercial success is not among them. This is important because Holocaust denial exists alongside its self-contradictory twin: ‘Holocaust exploi- tation.’ This despicable doctrine admits the truth of the Holocaust but asserts that the Jewish people and the Jewish state have used it for political and finan- cial gain. Each twin is the child of anti-Semitism, and though they are both contradictory, they are both advanced by the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people to incite hatred, terror, and war. Any author would like to see their book become a best-seller, but Amazon. com lists 2,000 Holocaust memoirs and biographies, so only a fool would write
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