A group of Hungarian police officers sat drinking and laughing, their uniforms reeking of alcohol. A man spat out the name of a Jewish family he was going to arrest the next day. After a few hours, all but one of the police officers had passed out on the ground. He slipped out into the night and ran down the town street toward a small house, a shadow in the darkness. The next morning, Hungarian police burst into an empty house. The family was nowhere to be found (Michelson 1). The liberator of this family was Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum, whose individual heroic actions during the Holocaust left a legacy of the lives of approximately a thousand Jews and a model of humanity for generations to come. Just before World War II, the persecution of the Jews began. with changes in civil law, which have increasingly restricted their opportunities and participation in society. According to Marion A. Kaplan, author of Between Dignity and Despair, Nazi-controlled governments confiscated Jews' "personal property and limited their purchases of food and clothing" (145). In 1938, the first anti-Semitic law was passed, restricting Jews' choice of profession and participation in the economy. That same year, the hatred culminated in an event forever known as “Kristallnacht,” “The Night of Broken Glass” (Ellis and Silinsky). The Germans used this term to “describe the tons of broken glass strewn across public spaces, streets, and squares from the ruined homes and shops of Jews” (Kaplan 125). This uproar began when a seventeen-year-old Polish Jew named Henry Grynszpan approached and shot an embassy official, Ernest Von Rath, after the latter was unable to release his family from Germany. This act gave Hitler the excuse to turn the Gentiles against the Jews. and ignite a h...... middle of paper ......enachem. “Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum.” The European Jewish Times September 2004: 1. “How many people died at Auschwitz? » The Nizkor Project. http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-09.html “Prayers and blessings”. Judaism 101. 2001. February 19, 2009. http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer.htm.Seltzer, Stefanie. President of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust. Interview with the author. March 18, 2009. Holocaust History Project. January 25, 2009. December 13, 2008 http://www.holocaust-history.org/hungarian-photos/. “The Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. October 7, 2008. “How many people died at Auschwitz? The Nizkor project. 2009. March 22, 2009. http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-09.html Unlikely Heroes. Documentary. Real. Richard Trank. Reported by Sir Ben Kingsley. Rabbi Marvin Yesterday, 2005.