Barbara Magalnick

Life for Jews in Hitler’s Germany became disquieting. By the time Nazi troops marched into Poland, prompting England and France to declare war,the more clandestine war against the Jews, which had begun quietly in Germany years before, flared publically with Kristallnacht―the "Night of Broken GLass"―on November 9 and 10, 1938. Hundreds of synagogues were attacked, vandalized, looted, burnt down and destroyed. Shop windows of thousands of Jewish-owned stores were smashed and the goods plundered. Jewish cemeteries were desecrated. At least 96 Jews died in the pogrom.

Dolf Ringel and his parents had fled Germany in 1933 and settled in Amsterdam, one of the few cities in Europe at the time that would welcome disenfranchised, stateless Jews. It was a temporary welcome, though long enough for Dolf to be reunited with his friend Max and to fall in love with Totye.

As Hitler's war spread across Europe, Dolf saw his world fade away like a painting that loses its color one stroke at a time. He and his beloved Totye, accompanied by Max, fled across the borders of four occupied countries in their quest for freedom. Their perilous and difficult journey seemed doomed when they were captured in Spain and placed in jail and a concentration camp.

Yet they survived. Strangers risked their own lives to help these three young people escape from the Nazis. Their story shows us again―and we need reminding―that not even the most brutal war can extinguish our best, most human values.