By Chance Alone: The Young Readers' Edition

MAX EISEN was born in Moldava nad Bodvou, a town in rural Czechoslovakia. He was ten years old when Hungary occupied Slovakia. In 1944 his family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them were immediately killed in gas chambers. Max, his father and uncle worked as slave labourers, but two months later both men were selected for medical experiments and subsequently murdered. Max lived; he managed to survive the Death March in January 1945 and the camps at Mauthausen, Melk and Ebensee in Austria.
He was liberated by the American 761st Black Panther Tank Battalion on May 6th, 1945. Eventually, he returned to Czechoslovakia, where he spent three years in an orphanage. Max Eisen arrived in Quebec City in October 1949 en route to Toronto, where he met his wife, Ivy Cosman. In 2016, Eisen released his memoir By Chance Alone, which was a finalist for the 2017 RBC Taylor Prize and the winner of the 2019 CBC Canada Reads competition.
He died on July 7th, 2022. Max Eisen is survived by his wife, his sons Ed and Larry, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.  KATHY KACER's award-winning list of Holocaust fiction and non-fiction for young readers includes The Secret of Gabi's Dresser (winner of the OLA Silver Birch Award), The Diary of Laura's Twin (winner of the National Jewish Book Council Award [US] and the Canadian Jewish Book Award), Hiding Edith (winner of the OLA Silver Birch Award, the Sydney Taylor Book Award [Association of Jewish Libraries], and the Yad Vashem Award for Children's Holocaust Literature [Israel]), and To Look a Nazi in the Eye (a Sydney Taylor Honor Book for Teens).
Her books have been published and translated in twenty countries. Kathy Kacer is the child of Holocaust survivors, and the parent of two actors and musical theatre performers. For more information, please go to www.kathykacer.com