I now have a fifth item to add to my list of gruesome things/situations I've encountered in my research. A book I recently read, Four Girls from Berlin, by Marianne Meyerhoff, is the story of four friends in Berlin during the 30's and 40's. One of the girls (the author's mother) is Jewish, the other three are are Christian. The young Jewish girl and her Jewish boyfriend married and the boy left for Cuba immediately. The plan was for his bride to follow in a few months and eventually the entire family would immigrate from Germany to Cuba. Needless, to say it didn't happen this way... ultimately only the bride made it to Cuba (on the ill-fated St. Louis), was turned back (as the story goes) and ended up in a work camp in Holland.

Through a long series of events the girl was rescued and eventually made her way to California. The rest of their family perished at the hands of the Nazis. The young man made it to Callifornia and enlisted in the U.S. Army and went back to Europe to fight the Nazis. During the five years he was in Europe he continually made inquiries into the fate of their combined families. Unfortunately he found out his elder sister was sent to a factory in Poland that made leather goods and soap out of human beings. I was speechless when I read that. I had no idea they made leather and soap out of human beings. That paragraph took my breath away.