In 1944 the Germans arrived and Isacovici, his family, and every other Jew from his town were pushed into cattle cars and taken ever closer to the soot and smoke of Auschwitz. He became a man of ashes.

Salomon Isacovici died in 1998. Dick Gerdes is a professor of Spanish at George Mason University. Man of Ashes was first published in Mexico in 1990 as A7393: Hombre de cenizas and was awarded the Fernando Jeno Prize.