Picture taken at Buchenwald

The above picture was taken by US troops when they liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, located on the outskirts of Weimar, Germany, home to Goethe and Schiller. The last small face you see on the top bunk to the far right is supposedly that of Mel Mermelstein, the author of By Bread Alone, which I bought while visiting the Auschwitz camp during my trip to Europe the summer of 2005. However, it should be noted that the last full face on the second bunk is rumored to be that of a very famous camp survivor, Elie Wiesel. I've also read his books. I don't recall his recollection of this photograph being taken, whereas Mermelstein gives a detailed account. But to claim either as fact would be hasty, if you ask me.

The account is, and I doubt any account can be anything but, amazing. Mel Mermelstein was a young 17 years old and Jewish when his family was transported from the Czech Republic in 1944 and transported to camps. At the urging of his father, after it was clear their mother and two sisters had already been gassed, they vowed to separate in order not to see each other's suffering.

His story is easy to read through. Though horrific in all its detail, though emotional in its story and its fact, something about how he relates it keeps you at a safe enough distance that you'll read on; your humanity isn't crushed the way you'd imagine it could be, but it is indeed touched.

It is loaded with photographs, documentation, newspaper articles (mostly from the Los Angeles Times) showing that the world was far more knowledgable about the Nazi crimes than those from history would like to admit. It makes you feel sick to imagine that in that time, it was simply news to people overseas, while the book you hold in your hand prove it was much more.

In the 1980s, Mel Mermelstein challenged a California-based Revisionist History group, who promised anybody that could prove gassing happened at Auschwitz would receive a $50,000 reward. Mel Mermelstein took their bet. He mailed in all his documentation, his book, a picture of his own tattoo, and they did not issue him the money. Therefore, he sued them for breach of contract. They were taken to court, and they were ordered to pay him because he did indeed prove that such things occurred. It's weird though--when you're online, some revisionist groups call this a "triumph," for themselves, and I'm so disgusted by the groups in general, that I don't linger to read why. I'd rather not know.