For Those I Loved: The Story of Hope and Survival in World War II

Front Cover, For Those I Loved: The Story of Hope and Survival in World War II, by Martin Gray With Max Gallo, 1971.

Front Cover, For Those I Loved: The Story of Hope and Survival in World War II, by Martin Gray With Max Gallo, 1971. GGA Image ID # 17ef7f6a09

The story of hope and survival that has touched the hearts of 30 million readers. Translated from the French by Anthony White. ISBN 0-316-325767, LOC 72-7301

The flames of war's inhumanity ravaged martin gray's life when he was only fourteen; by raw will he crawled out of the devastation and built a strong personal fortress.  His story transcends all religious beliefs; he personifies the shining triumph of the indomitable human spirit.

From the Dust Jacket

Before Martin Gray was 20, he had lived, in his own words, "centuries.”

For Those I Loved records those centuries as a haunting monument.

Martin Gray led a pleasant life with his family on Senatorska Street in Warsaw for fourteen years before the month of his “real birth," September 1939.

From then on, he and everyone else in the Jewish ghetto were plunged into an endless hell of butchers and bombs, corpses and concentration camps, a nightmare from which it was impossible to awake. At that period, "our lives had the resistance of stone, and our stones the eternity of life."

In the midst of the holocaust and annihilation of his people, Martin Gray mastered the techniques of survival. With the help of an amazingly resourceful gang of rogues, he slipped sacks of wheat into streetcars that were still circulating between Warsaw and the ghetto, right under the noses of the SS and Polish "Blues.”

This smuggled food helped to keep alive his family and the abandoned children in rags who emerged from the shadows with outstretched hands, crying "Have pity, Jewish heart.” Marlin Gray swore to survive the cruelty, outwit the "beasts with men’s faces" and avenge their victims.

And he did survive, not only the extern-initiation of his home in Warsaw, but the dreaded "lower camp" at Treblinka, a place of unimaginable horrors. Afterward, he escaped to become a member of the Resistance at Zabrow, then an officer in the Soviet Army, seeking out and eliminating Germans who had gone into hiding.

Soon Martin Gray passed into the American zone of Berlin, and set out for New York and his frail grandmother. In three years, the ferociously industrious "Mietek” (his childhood nickname) made his fortune as an importer of antique furniture and porcelain.

Then, in a soaring chapter, Martin Gray describes an idyll: a new life in southern France in a château surrounded by the sea and music, a lovely young wife and four precious children. Suddenly, in a Hash of forest fire, Dina and the children were burned to death. Martin Gray was "scandalously alone," with nothing left of his life but himself.

The flames of war’s inhumanity ravaged Martin Gray's life when he was only fourteen; by raw will he crawled out of the devastation and built a strong personal fortress. What incredible qualities of tenacity and faith sustained this modern-day Job!

When savage punishments beat him down again and again, his response was to reach for the highest and noblest values a man possesses. His story transcends all religious beliefs: he personifies the shining triumph of the indomitable human spirit.

Martin Gray still lives in southern France, where he has established a foundation to fight for the human environment.

Credits

  • Jacket design by Char Lappan
  • Color photo by Susan Brendel
  • Photo of the author by Christian Bouchet, Provence magazine.

Library of Congress Catalog Listing

  • LC Control No.: 72007301
  • Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.)
  • Personal Name: Gray, Martin.
  • Uniform Title: Au nom de tous les miens.
  • English Main Title: For those I loved [by] Martin Gray with Max Gallo. Translated from the French by Anthony White. Foreword by David Douglas Duncan.
  • Edition Information: [1st English language ed.]
  • Published/Created: Boston, Little, Brown [1972]
  • Related Names: Gallo, Max, 1932-
  • Description: xiv, 351 p. illus. 24 cm.
  • ISBN: 0316325767
  • Notes: Translation of Au nom de tous les miens.
  • Subjects: Gray, Martin. World War, 1939-1945 --Personal narratives, Jewish.
  • LC Classification: D810.J4 G7213
  • Dewey Class No.: 940.53/15/03924
  • Language Code: engfre
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