Engineering miracles: Joseph Winkler and the history of survival

Joseph Winkler was a Polish engineer who survived the war as a privileged scientist doing research in the petroleum field in Russia. After the war he chose to be flown back to Poland even though he had Russian citizenship. He never spoke about his experiences even to his family but chose to record his memoirs. These were discovered years later after his death and transcribed. This is a different category of survivor and this article explores in particular how the diverse wartime experiences of Jewish survivors differently shaped their hopes for the future.