Was it Just a Matter of Luck?: A Family, the Holocaust, and the Founding of a Museum

Intimate in voice and sweeping in historical reach, Was It Just a Matter of Luck? bears witness to the endurance of memory and the moral force of survival. Through the voice of his mother, Ray Kaner - a fiercely intelligent young woman who endured four years in the Lódź ghetto, brutal slave labor, and near death in Bergen-Belsen - Dr. Charles Kaner reconstructs her harrowing passage through the Holocaust and the sustaining power of sisterhood that helped her survive.

Interwoven with his own journey as a second-generation survivor, Kaner traces how Ray transformed unspeakable trauma into purpose. In postwar America, she became a quiet but determined force in the preservation of Holocaust memory, helping to establish one of the nation's earliest survivor-testimony projects and laying crucial groundwork for what would become the Museum of Jewish Heritage. At once a son's act of devotion and a profound historical reckoning, Was It Just a Matter of Luck? asks not only how one woman survived, but how survival itself became a legacy.

Author: Charles Kaner
Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers
Published: 03/19/2026
Pages: 254
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.09lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9789493418769

About the Author
Kaner, Charles: - Dr. Charles Kaner has devoted his career to providing high quality dental care in Midtown Manhattan. Dr. Kaner is a Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology, which is a recognized specialty of the American Dental Association, one of the highest recognitions of achievement afforded by the specialty. Dr. Kaner graduated from Temple University Dental School after obtaining a B.S degree at Brooklyn College. Thereafter, he completed his graduate training at New York University Dental School. He currently is an Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai Hospital, an Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and has been the Chief of the Periodontal Department at Mount Sinai Hospital since 1990. In addition to his private practice and hospital commitments, he lectures both nationally and internationally on periodontics and implant surgery. Dr. Kaner's mother Ray Kaner has handled the front office for nearly 40 years and knows his patients well. Dr. Kaner has accompanied his mother on hundreds of talks about her experience in the Lódź Ghetto, and is actively involved with the Board of Directors at the Museum of History in Battery Park.Stocke, Joy E.: - "Journalist, editor, and publisher, Joy E. Stocke works at the intersection of culture, history, and memory. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a B.S. in Journalism, she has spent more than 30 years collaborating with Holocaust survivors and their descendants - editing, shaping, and helping bring to life stories of individuals and families who emerged from profound loss into witness and renewal. As founder of Tree of Life Consulting & Publishing, Stocke mentors writers at every stage of development, guiding manuscripts from initial concept through editing, design, and publication. Her work is rooted in a deep belief that language, image, and story are essential tools for connection across difference."

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