23 year old Josh Lipsky asked to be on the advance team for President Obama’s visit to Buchenwald hoping to fill in some holes in his family history. Lipsky’s grandfather, Samuel Smulowitz, met his wife-to-be at a labor camp but they were separated when he was sent to Buchenwald. With help from the Buchenwald guides, Lipsky retraced his grandfather’s steps, stood in the cellar under the kitchen where he worked, and held a check-in slip bearing his signature. Lipsky’s grandmother survived to liberation and searched for Smulowitz, eventually finding him in Munich. They married, moved to the United States, and had three children, one of them Lipsky’s mother.