ECHOES OF THE PAST (en Inglés) - Julian Claudio Nabozny

Inspired by extraordinary true events, this book is a

testimony that connects two horrific moments in human

history, separated by nearly a century: the Holocaust

and the terrorist attack of October 7, 2023, in Israel. That day,

from my home in Phoenix, Arizona, I followed the news of the massacre

perpetrated by Hamas in a state of shock.

I felt then that something ancient awakened in me: the voice of my family

history reminding me that antisemitic hatred doesn’t disappear, it only

changes symbols, flags, and slogans.

I remembered then my father, Edward, an officer in the KOP-the Polish

Border Guard-Catholic and a man of unwavering integrity. Who survived

Soviet labor camps in Siberia, fought against the Nazis of the Afrika Korps

in the Sahara Desert and in the bloody battle of Monte Cassino, where he

was decorated by the British 8th Army.

But at the heart of this story is always my mother, Maria, a young Italian

woman, also a devout Catholic. In Nazi-occupied Urbino, when the

Gestapo and SS were raiding houses searching for Jews to deport them to

extermination camps, she made a courageous decision: she hid Sara, her

best friend, who was Jewish, in the attic. She knew that a single mistake, a

single denunciation, could cost her, Sara, and my grandparents their lives.

Her gesture, as fragile as it was brave, was an act of moral resistance, a flame

lit in the midst of darkness.

And there, amid the chaos of a burning Europe, a love story also emerged:

that of my parents, Edward and Maria, two young people from different

worlds whom destiny brought together in the ruins of war.