HENRY ORENSTEIN was standing outside his concentration camp barracks, shivering, when the amplified voice of his salvation cut through the frigid air: “All Jewish scientists, engineers, inventors, chemists and mathematicians must register immediately.” It was January 1944, and his fellow prisoners were suffering and dying all around him—beaten during morning roll call for standing half a step out of line; hanged for trying to escape; shot in the head just because. Orenstein had just endured the latest perverse humiliation perpetrated by the SS guards, who had chased 400 wet, naked prisoners from the shower house out into the snow, then pummelled the frozen men as they climbed back inside, one by one, through a small window.
The voice blared out again: “All Jewish scientists, engineers, inventors, chemists and mathematicians must register immediately.”