another Holocaust memoir thinking it was a ticket to fame and fortune. Be- sides, in writing this book, Leon wants nothing for himself. He and his wife Betty, herself a surviving member of Schindler’s List, are dedicated to promot- ing anti-hate education. I am sure he would be satisfied if every last copy of his book were given away with the hope it would be read and its lessons learned. While it’s easy to say why this book had to be written, it’s not so easy to say why it should be read, why one would want to be part of Leon Schagrin’s struggle to survive, why experience his nightmare, even if only vicariously? If you are a Holocaust scholar, you won’t want to miss it, if only because Leon witnessed so much with his own eyes. I have been a student of the Holocaust for fifty years now. I have been fight- ing anti-Semitism throughout my career as a civil rights lawyer in private prac- tice. I sit on the state and national leadership boards of the Anti-Defamation League (though I speak here solely in my personal capacity.) I count over three hundred books in my personal library about the history of anti-Semitism. Not one of them packs the power of Leon Schagrin’s narrative. Before exposing a child to this story, parents and teachers should exercise cau- tion. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am convinced that for my children, and I, our exposure to the Holocaust at an early age was a life-changing event—in a positive way. I don’t know what child psychologists have to say about exposing kids to mass death and destruction, but in my case, it led directly to my deci- sion to practice civil rights law as well as my involvement in the ADL. I have my own twins: Jay and Lauren. When they were ten years old, we visited Dachau, where we saw the torture chamber that housed Pastor Martin Niemoller. He‘s responsible for the famous speech about the cowardice of Ger- man intellectuals opposing the Nazi path to totalitarianism: They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up be- cause I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Or, as this statement attributed to Edmund Burke says: All it takes for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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