It has been 70 years since the end of World War II and the liberation of the camps. For some of us, their offspring, we are still consumed by the events of those six years, the aftermath of which continues to unfold in our lives and our psyches. For some of us, these 70 years are our 7 days of shiva in which we mourn those lost souls and wonder what might have been. For some of us, we feel compelled to understand why our parent was the way he was.

This is the story of a survivor, our father whose entire family was murdered in Treblinka, a man for whom the “final solution” DID happen. He overcame, lived a uniquely “successful” life but never faced his terrible grief. This is his story, and the story of the next generation, their journey to uncover the truth of who he was and why they became the tangled web of who they are.

The story begins in Xanthi, Greece with our journey, which will follow the same route forced upon our family, from the moment they were pulled out of their beds and homes at 3 am, on March 3, 1943 till their annihilation in the Treblinka Death Camp in Poland sometime around the end of March or beginning of April, 1943. It is a journey that will evoke an intensity of emotions that will be difficult to withstand.

We will endure whatever comes our way. The style of the journey will be modest, no 5-star hotels, no exotic restaurants, no souvenier shopping, just bare basics. Our transportation will include trains and buses because we want to travel on the same railroad tracks, breath the same air, see the same countryside that perhaps they might have seen, smell the smells that may have permeated the box car peep holes, immerse ourselves in this jet-fuel experience and maybe even sense their presence.

And write, till every emotion and every sensation is recorded. If they are out there somewhere, they will know that we, whom they never met, never loved, never hugged, but whom they might have imagined, are with them, that they are not forgotten, that their precious lives will be recorded into posterity. The book will be called, “A Soul’s Calling”, a book about a holocaust survivor and the next generation.