The movie is based on the 1972 book titled
For Those I Loved written by
Martin Gray. The main character in the book belonged to the
Reform Jews, where he lived with his family in
Warsaw Ghetto after the
German invasion of Poland. The character supports his family with black-market supplies and joins the
Resistance. He is deported to the
Treblinka camp, where he manages to survive and then escape. Afterwards he joins the partisan forces and then the
Red Army, taking part in the
Battle of Berlin. After the war he left the Red Army and went in search of his grandmother, the sole survivor of his family. He found his grandmother in New York and emigrated to America. He became a successful businessman there. Then he married Dina, with whom he had four children. After the birth of their first child, the protagonist moved with his family back to France. There in 1970 his wife and children tragically lost their lives in a forest fire. In 1976 he married again and had three more children. He started a foundation to teach others about his experiences. Holocaust historian
Gitta Sereny has dismissed Gray's autobiographical book as a forgery in a 1979 article in
New Statesman magazine, writing that "Gray's
For Those I Loved was the work of
Max Gallo the ghostwriter, who also produced
Papillon. Some of Gray's claims of wartime heroism were dismissed in Poland as untrue by the
Silent Unseen Captain Wacław Kopisto. ==Cast==