PREFACE

Lisa B. Cicero

THIS IS THE story of the “Miracle Kid,” the nickname given to Martin Baranek by his concentration camp brethren.

I am standing beside Martin in the town square of his former hometown of Wierzbnik, Poland. A taxi driver approaches and begins speaking to Martin in Polish. I can hear the anguish in the man’s voice as he says to Martin, “I remember October 27, 1942. I was too young to do anything. I was just a child.” He asks Martin what has become of his former classmates and neighbors. Martin tells him of the few who survived the war, but mostly of those who did not. The man has a helpless expression frozen in time on his aging face.

Martin is a regular participant in the March of the Living, an annual pilgrimage to Auschwitz-Birkenau on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The purpose of the March is to educate students and adults, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, about the horrors of the Holocaust. Martin retells his life story while standing in the barracks in Birkenau. I convince him that his story must be memorialized for future generations, and he agrees to meet with me to document his experiences. He talks about life in Poland, and his struggle to recuperate in the war’s aftermath. We travel together to Poland, Austria, and Israel on three separate occasions, visiting his hometown and the camps where he was a prisoner.

Martin’s story is compelling because he experiences a ghetto, a labor camp, a concentration camp, and a death camp. By the age of 15, he also experiences a death march – and finally, liberation. Martin Baranek is the embodiment of the 20th century Eastern European Jewish experience.

Many wonder how and why one person survives the Holocaust while another does not, and whether place of birth or other circumstances play a part. Is it fate? Luck? Destiny? The answer is unknowable. For Martin, it may be his insuppressible spirit, or perhaps a series of miracles linked together that allowed him, one of the few from his family, to survive.