In January 1942, Adolf Hitler proclaimed his “Final Solution” to the Jewish question: complete extermination. Just nine months later, over a million Jewish adults and older children across Europe had been herded onto railcars bound for death camps, where they were murdered with industrial efficiency.
It was now time to deal with the toddlers—to eliminate any possibility they might grow up and procreate. On October 30th, three-year old Max Kohn was arrested at his orphanage and taken to a transit camp outside Antwerp, where he lay asleep in a crib. In the morning he was to be put on the train for Auschwitz and executed upon arrival. For little Max, though, fate interceded.
Saving Max is about kids. It is a story told against the contemporary backdrop of populism, tribalism, antisemitism and genocide, which, if left unchallenged and unchecked, can devolve, through twisted logic, to a place and time where even babies and toddlers can be seen as the enemy.
