Special thanks to
The Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance
The Holocaust Historical Society, the United Kingdom
The Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York
The Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom in Treblinka, Poland
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
Yad Vashem (Document Archives and the Shoah Victims’ Names Database)
First, I thank the various authors who supplied the above references. Without the careful work documenting survivors’ experiences (along with the trial transcripts), we would have never known the truth about Treblinka. I also extend a warm thank you to Rabbi Bonnie Koppell for her eloquent foreword. We have been friends and professional colleagues for many years and I greatly appreciate her partnering with me on this project.
I am very grateful to the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance in Vienna, specifically Dr. Elisabeth Klamper, for authorizing the use of the cover photo. I thank the Museum of Jewish Heritage, specifically Elizabeth Edelstein, for her warm reception and eager help to assist with remaining questions I had about Treblinka. I also thank the Treblinka Museum director, Edward Kopówka, for his hospitality when I performed my on-site research in Poland. He was very helpful with instructing me on the latest research at Treblinka and was receptive to my work. Also, a special thanks to Chris Webb at the Holocaust Historical Society in London for his persistent responsiveness, and to the librarians and reference technicians at USHMM and Yad Vashem for their professionalism in providing requested information.
Next, I thank my kind and patient editor Vicki Zimmer for her hours of tedious sentence reconstructing. She also edited The Lion and the Lamb and I am grateful for her superb work on both projects. Vicki and her husband Mark are two of my closest friends from college, and they are wonderful people.
A warm thank you to Henry Foster, my friend and mentor in Columbia, SC, who graciously provided a painting for this book. A special thanks to Lauri and Madison Causey for reading an early version of the manuscript and offering constructive feedback. Lauri also performed some helpful editing for me along the way. She is amazing. Thanks to Todd Canfield for his friendship and hospitality over the final months before publication. Thank you Elm Hill team for your efforts in making Trains to Treblinka a reality for seeing my vision for Trains to Treblinka. Thank you to Julia Marie Edeler-Slinker for her help with German translation. Thank you to my beta readers (Janice Bertilson, Alan Cole, Virginia Emery, Beth Funk, Mark Jenkins, Cindy Rietema, and Joanne Teasdale), who gave me very helpful feedback. And last but not least, I thank Charlie Yost for proofreading the manuscript during one of his busier summers. This is the third book he has helped me edit. A mere thank you doesn’t cut it. All of the people mentioned above are true friends who have graciously given of their time to make this project successful.
For my children, I wrote Trains to Treblinka to help keep the memory of Treblinka alive for your generation. Live your lives. Live your lives well. It has been over seventy-five years since the revolt. Now all who escaped and lived to tell their story are no longer with us, and many of the biographers who interviewed the survivors are deceased. All we have left are their stories—and we need them. It is important to study the past to learn these two lessons: the extent of what humans are capable of doing to each other, and the extent the inner spirit of man can accomplish in response to crisis. And that’s the Treblinka elegy, a crisis of humanity. Learn both lessons. Love all people. And remember that in order to fully love, you must fully forgive.