Synopsis: The events leading up to and through World War II are so well known, particularly to the baby boomer generation, that people often tend to take for granted they know what went on. Colettte Waddell's new book Through the Eyes of Survivor makes it evident that most have only glanced at the surface.

Nina Morecki was born into a wealthy merchant class family in Lvov, Poland, the youngest of three daughters. She lived a life of privilege until her teens, when her family was ripped asunder by the Nazi invasion of Poland. She never saw her loved ones again.

Through the Eyes of a Survivor is a brilliant synthesis of oral history and historical research. Nina became an educator in her mid 70’s after reluctantly telling her story to a high school English class. Its profound impact on her audience propelled her into this unlikely avocation. Colette Waddell, then a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara, heard Nina speak and thought the world should know her story, not as a memoir, but as a historical work.

Colette found in Nina a survivor who proves that people may pass from our physical lives, yet live on in our hearts. Nina’s story offers tolerance in place of forgiveness, and a point of view recognizing the brutal inhumanity that allowed the holocaust, and, more importantly, the human potential to endure it.