Measure of a Man: Auschwitz to the White House by Martin Greenfield

There can never be too many books about the holocaust.

Each one is a document and a testament, and another (to use anti-semite Roger Waters' term) "brick in the wall" to block out the deniers.

Documenting atrocities isn't the point of these books. It's the survival. It's the morality.

This is very well illustrated in one story Martin Greenfield tells. Martin who?

Greenfield's enough of a celebrity to get a book deal, that's who. Born in Pavlovo (once part of Czechoslovakia, now part of the Ukraine), he was 19 when he came to Brooklyn, having survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald (unlike the rest of his family). A master tailor, he would not only dress up President Eisenhower (whom he'd originally met during the liberation), but other politicians and celebrities including Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Patrick Ewing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others. His vintage designs were also used in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire."

Naturally the most gripping part of the book involves his teen years imprisoned by the Nazis. He was not exactly wearing the heigh of couture when he was 16 and a prisoner in Buchenwald. Assigned to a work detail outside Weimar, the brutal hard work was sometimes rewarded when he could find a potato or some other edible in a field, or some discarded item he might bring back to the camp and trade for food. Repairing a building, he wandered into the cellar where he found a cage that contained some pet rabbits:

"Inside the cage were the remains of the rabbits’ dinner. I unlatched the cage and pulled out a wilted leaf and carrot nub. The lettuce was browning and slimy, the carrot still moist from the rabbits’ gnawing. Excited, I wolfed down the lettuce and tried to crack the chunk of carrot in half with my teeth. My luck was short-lived. “What are you doing?” a voice yelled."

An irate blonde, who turned out to be the mayor's wife, quickly summoned an SS soldier to punish the prisoner:

"'Down on the ground, you dog! Fast!' yelled the German. He gripped his baton and bludgeoned my back. I do not know whether the mayor’s wife watched the beating. Given her cruelty, why would she want to miss it? On the hike back to Buchenwald, I replayed the scene over and over in my mind. How could a woman carrying her own child find a walking skeleton...and have him beaten for nibbling on rotten animal food? I thought...Then and there I made a vow to myself: If I survived Buchenwald, I would return and kill the mayor’s wife."

When Buchenwald was liberated, Greenfield made his way back to the home of the mayor.

"“Remember me?!” I yelled. “Do you?!” Her blond tresses shook violently. She hid her face behind her upraised hand as if shielding herself from the sun. “You had me beaten because of the rabbits. I’m here to shoot you!” I said, sounding like an SS. “No! Please!” she quavered. “The baby, please!” I aimed the machine gun at her chest. The baby wailed. My finger hovered above the trigger."

I think the reader knows the end of this anecdote. These days, it says a lot about the Jewish concepts of mercy, compared to, say, the beheadings and beatings that are such a part of "radical" Islam.

"Never again" is a slogan that must be affirmed, and anecdotes such as Greenfield's tell us why...because we can't forget that basic goodness is foremost in our hearts. One must never forget that it takes two words, combined, to create "mankind."