I decided to use English although it is neither my mother tongue nor the language of our adopted country, Israel, because I feel that a mutual understanding exists between the English speaking people and the Holocaust survivors. The story of my life is divided into three periods. The first part deals with the years before World War II, before I was twenty-one, a period of happiness, a kind of earthly paradise, although at a greater distance it was a fool's paradise. Here my memories return to a world that only a few decades ago was so different from ours, a world in which the way of life, customs, and manners had different meanings and values. In these pages I want to perpetuate the memory of my beloved ones, lost to me for ever in the cruelties of life.
Many people consider childhood and youth the happiest periods of life.
If this is true for the majority of people, it is certainly true for me. I had the most wonderful, kind, good and loving parents in the world, who built for us a warm nest, secure and protective, full of affection and care. To my parents I owe not only my life, but so much more, the positive attitude to people and the moral values which have been my guidelines throughout my life. I shall, therefore, begin with a few details about the origin of my parents - very few indeed, because they never, or very seldom, discussed their past.