num_pages: 225
description: September 1, 1939 was to be the best day in twelve-year-old Joseph Horn’s life. He was to begin high school in Radom, Poland. But Joseph Horn never made it to school. Instead of the sounds of teachers discussing literature and philosophy, he heard the heavy German bombers drop their payloads on Radom itself, using the town milkman, his two sons and three cows for target practice. He watched the tanks of the German army rumble by on their mission of destruction. Thus began his odyssey through one of the most barbarous atrocities in the history of mankind. Joseph Horn stayed alive while his family perished, working in the appalling conditions of a slave-labor munitions factory, then at Blizyn, run by one of the SS’s most savage officers. He survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. In Mark It with a Stone, Joseph Horn points an accusing finger at his oppressors. His book contains memories of the horrors and the inhumanity, the despair and degradation, and also of the acts of kindness and bravery that allowed him to live. Joseph Horn passed away in 1999. In her new introduction to Mark It with a Stone, Horn’s daughter, Sandy Rubenstein, describes the impact of the Holocaust on the children of survivors, addressing the need for people to reflect on their own moral responsibilities to stand up against today’s hate, anti-Semitism, and genocide. Holocaust deniers incite hatred and spread misinformation. Internet use allows bigotry and prejudice to surge in ways that are not only blatant, but also subtle. Joseph Horn’s eyewitness testimony plays a crucial role in confronting and combating hatred and denial now, and in generations to come.
language: English
title: Mark It With a Stone: A Moving Account of a Young Boy's Struggle to Survive the Nazi Death Camps