Stephen J. Ross

Yes, it is one of the great ironies that he had wanted to be an engineer, but he had gone from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka to a death march from the Eastern Front back to Dachau.

And when he got there, they put him in the bakery there.

And he learned how to be a baker there.

And after the war, after the liberation of the camp, he had been working for the Germans and the army came in and said, well, you're going to run the bakery and they're going to work for you now.

And when he came to America, he didn't speak much English yet.

And so he used the one skill he had.

baker and became a baker uh partnered up with someone who had been in dachau with him and they ran a local bakery in queens for years and they only had two wholesale clients zabars and balducci's the two best places in the city to get your baked goods and your delicatessen goods etc etc and uh

It was – again, I think you're right.

It's the great irony, the great revenge.

He gets to feed America while those who were trying to kill him are all dead.

Can I tell you one very quick story?

Sure.

I had lunch with one of my colleagues.

who asked me, because I had given an early talk about the book, he said, I don't get it.

You just spent all these years living with Nazis and fascists and writing about them, and now you're turning around and writing another book?

How can you do that?

And I looked at him and I smiled and I said, this is my revenge.

I get to write their story.

They don't die unknown.

They get exposed by me.