Defy the Darkness: A Tale of Courage in the Shadow of Mengele

This is the story of a young man caught in the whirlwind of the Holocaust, who survives a chain of events so harrowing they almost defy belief. As a boy, Joe Rosenblum watches as the Nazi overlords tighten their grip on his small Polish town. Narrowly escaping mass executions that take his own brother, Rosenblum is first sheltered by a local Gentile family, then takes refuge with Russian partisans. Once captured by the Germans, he begins a journey through three concentration camps―Majdanek, Auschwitz, and Dachau.

Living by his wits, a courier for the camp underground, Rosenblum is able to help other prisoners, and even to save children selected for the gas chambers. Eventually he finds himself working for the infamous Dr. Mengele. In a bizarre twist of fate, the Angel of Death is persuaded to perform life-saving surgery on Rosenblum―perhaps making him the only Jew to be saved by the deadly doctor's skills.

A remarkable man who danced on the razor's edge of history, Rosenblum did not merely survive the Holocaust, but rose above it by radiating hope and humanity―by defying the darkness.

JOE ROSENBLUM was born in Miedzyrzec, Poland, a town slowly strangled to death by the Nazis./e Though Joe lost most of his family in the Holocaust, he saved numerous other people as well as himself through almost unflagging optimism, luck and ingenuity. He endured three death camps and a death march. After being liberated, Joe worked in Germany for a couple of years before immigrating to the United States, where he has flourished in the building and painting business. Joe remains in contact with several of the people mentioned in this book and continues to run several family businesses.

DAVID KOHN is a freelance writer who has been in the writing business for 25 years./e He has worked in various capacities on several books. As a versatile co-author, ghostwriter, and editor, David has worked on book topics ranging from medicine to magic to memoirs.