Former Milwaukee Bucks player and general manager Ernie Grunfeld is the only athlete in NBA history whose parents survived the Holocaust. A longtime figure in the public eye, fans know very little about his background.
“My grandmother always said we needed voices back then (during the Holocaust) and there weren’t enough of them,” son Dan Grunfeld told Wis. Morning News. “We saw what happened (in Germany). We need to use our voices to tell these stories and raise awareness.”
In Dan Grunfeld’s new book, “By The Grace of the Game,” he details what their family endured during the Holocaust, how basketball transformed Ernie from an immigrant outcast to an Olympic gold medalist for the United States. The story traverses the spectrum of the human experience to detail how perseverance, love, and legacy can survive through generations, carried on the shoulders of a simple and beautiful game.
Join a virtual forum on Sunday, February 2nd at 2pm to hear author and former professional basketball player Dan Grunfeld discuss his book, By the Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, a Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream, with Craig Karmazin the founder and chief executive officer of Good Karma Brands. Click here to learn more.
Hosted by the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.