...As a child growing up in the Bronx, the last four digits of Terry Noble's phone number were 7401. Coincidence: When Terry was assigned a social security number, the last four digits were 7401. And years later, when he found himself as a volunteer on a kibbutz in Israel — where he now called himself Tuvia Ariel — he worked with a carpenter whom he respected. The carpenter was a wiry, solid man, dedicated, the silent type. Ariel learned that he was one of the few who had escaped Auschwitz alive, that he then joined the Polish partisans, then the British Army. It sent him to Palestine, where he deserted to join the Palmach, the Jewish fighting force, and helped Israel win her independence in 1948.

Quite a history.

But more than awe piqued Ariel's curiosity about this survivor's experiences in the Holocaust. Ariel had read the number tattooed on his arm. The last four digits were 7401.

"Don't talk about it!" Ariel recalls the carpenter telling him forcefully, painfully. "I lost my whole family, my mother, my father; there was a brother in back of me, a brother in front of me — I'm the only one left. Don't bring it up again!"

Ariel didn't.

Except once...