In the last chaotic days of Nazi Germany, in a train transferring concentration camp prisoners to Dachau, a teenager hears the cries of babies. At 14, William Glied has already lost his family. Emaciated and shivering with typhoid, he thinks he is delirious, for how could newborns be in such wretched conditions?

And yet, seven babies were born that spring because the Germans spared seven pregnant inmates. Most survivors think such clemency came because the war was ending and the guards tried to cast themselves in a better light. But Mr. Glied wants to believe it happened because there was a glimmer of decency in the heart of a Nazi.

“I feel that human beings are by nature good, that they’re not evil. If I didn’t believe that, there is not much sense in human existence,” the 84-year-old said from his Toronto home. —The Globe and Mail.