In the Krakow-Płaszów concentration camp, both Ephroim Jablon and Sam Weisberg quickly learn of the brutality of the new commandant, Amon Göth, in early 1943. His wrath is near inescapable. By sheer luck, Sam becomes the commandant’s houseboy, a privileged, yet risky, position. Ephroim gets a job in the carpentry workshop, making him similarly "useful," yet he still lives in constant fear. At sixteen years old, both feel like they are walking a tightrope where one wrong move can make them the target of Göth’s unpredictable volatility. They are both ultimately deported and sent on different trajectories — Ephroim to Auschwitz and the Mauthausen camp system and Sam to the Gross-Rosen concentration camps —but their experiences in Płaszów are an ever-present reminder that their fates can change in an instant. Carry the Torch and A Lasting Legacy are the different yet parallel stories of two men who, as the sole survivors of their immediate families, must find their own way after the war and decide whether to keep their histories in the past.
