Blood from a stone
Subtitle: the quest for the life diamonds
By: Yaron Svoray and Richard Hammer.
Contributors: Hammer, Richard, 1928-
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Forge
Published: 2003
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 285
Subjects: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Economic aspects -- Germany.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Economic aspects -- Germany.; World War, 1939-1945 -- Confiscations and contributions -- Germany.; Diamonds -- Germany -- History -- 20th century.; Jewish property -- Germany.
Description: They were known as Life Diamonds--rough uncut diamonds of high quality bought by Jews in Eastern Europe to use as passports to safety. After 1939 and the Nazi blitzkrieg, after the extermination camps began belching black smoke into the skies and the railroad station at Auschwitz II-Birkenau became the busiest train station in the world, they became Death Diamonds. Blood from a Stone is the amazing story of forty of those diamonds, of their journey across continents and oceans, from the mines of South Africa to the diamond centers in Antwerp and Amsterdam, to the Jews of Eastern Europe, to the Death Camps ... and to the two American soldiers who liberated them from the SS, finally, and buried them in a forest in Alsace on the border between France and Germany. It is the story of the curse believed to lie over the fabulous wealth of these stones, bringing death and disaster to all who touched them. It is the story of Yaron Svoray, who spent more than a decade in search of one small foxhole somewhere in a thousand square miles of forest ... and of his unbelievable success.