The Strength of Hope

One of most uplifting stories you will ever read. Abram Goldberg is a beacon of joy and optimism, and a master of keeping perspective.

The day Abram and his mother arrived at Auschwitz death camp they both knew it would be her last. In their final moment together, Abram's mum urged her nineteen-year-old son to 'do everything humanly possible to survive, and tell people what happened here.' Then she was taken to a gas chamber and murdered. Abram had already endured and survived so much until that moment but with his strength of hope, sometimes reduced to a flicker, he survived. With the exception of his sister who had escaped to Russia, the rest of his family did not.

After liberation, Abram travelled back and forth across Europe, doing secret underground work and getting into dangerous scrapes including the night he and his friend were locked in a dungeon with a Nazi. He eventually found his way to Belgium, where he met the love of his life, fellow Auschwitz survivor, Cesia. The young couple made their way to Australia, where that flicker of hope grew as bright as the sun, illuminating everything they touched and everyone who came into their sphere. Without bitterness and always with perspective, Abram has never forgotten his mother's last words to him. And in their seventy-five years of marriage, Abram and Cesia have remained dedicated to educating people about the Holocaust and to living their lives to the fullest in tribute to its victims.

The Strength of Hope is full of wisdom, insight and daring, but at its heart it is a love story: for Cesia, for Australia and for life itself.

All royalties from the sale of this book are going to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, which Abram has been involved with since its inception in 1984.