Hope and the makeshift prayer book

The other day, I met a woman who lives down the block. I told her about an informal violin concert that I had attended at a hotel over Chol Hamoed Pesach. The performers were a mother and daughter. The mother must have been close to eighty. While they were playing, it was obvious that the daughter was more talented.
"She got all of the lessons", the mother told the audience.
"Her lessons were interrupted due to the war", the daughter explained.
I remarked to the woman that it was heartwarming to see this survivor of the war, who, instead of being bitter and mired in the past, had successfully rebuilt her life, and had seen her childhood ambitions realized through her daughter.
The woman told me that it was unfathomable to her as to how those who had been in the camps had survived with their faith intact, ready to build their lives anew. She related to me a story about her father.

While he was in one of the concentrations camps, a German officer had taken an inexplicable liking to him. One day, her father and a few inmates decided to write a siddur, surreptitiously, putting to print the words of the prayers recalled from the recesses of their minds. The woman's father was busy at the task, when the officer approached him.
"What are you doing?" the officer shouted. "Don't you know what will happen to you for undertaking such an activity?"
Her father responded.
"You took away everything. You took away my home, my family and my livelihood. But the one thing you didn't take away is hope. And that hope is written in here", he said, as he pointed to his makeshift prayer book.
"Get away from me", the officer commanded. "I didn't see anything."

The following video link shows Itzchak Perlman playing the theme from Schindler's list. Those of you who don't listen to any music during the sefira should wait till Lag Baomer to listen to his performance.