The letter thanks the College, Summer School, and summer program leaders for their input on the plan, and it continues to say that “implementation of this plan will not occur for at least one year.” Both the Stillman Infirmary, UHS’s ten-bed inpatient care center, and after-hours urgent care now operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, according to the UHS website. After-hours urgent care provides advice and treatment for physical and emotional health issues that require immediate attention.

The Infirmary is for students whose condition is not serious enough for hospitilazation, but who are too ill stay in their own residences. The Infirmary is also the primary on-campus treatment facility for students with acute alcohol-related illnesses. The plan was originally proposed because of limited need for the facilities during the summer, but is no longer being considered for this summer.

In April, UHS informed Harvard’s schools of the plan, which would have closed the infirmary and after-hours urgent care between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. over the summer. After-hours calls to UHS would have been forwarded to a clinical triage service, which would have either given the patient advice and recommended a follow-up visit or told the patient to visit the nearest emergency room.

The proposed closures would have had “no impact” on workers at UHS who belonged to the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers, according to union director Bill Jaeger.

According to Rosenthal’s letter, UHS made the decision not to implement the plan “after a number of concerns were raised about communication and coordination with the various summer programs during the consultation process.”

The letter said that UHS will continue its discussion with the schools and summer programs this fall.

University spokespeople Nanci Martin and John D. Longbrake declined to comment further.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu.

Walking past a kindergarten classroom at Fletcher-Maynard Academy, a public primary school in Cambridge’s Area Four district, Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey M. Young and Principal Robin Harris noticed a four-year-old boy sitting on the floor and reading a book upside down.

“It wasn’t atypical in a junior kindergarten class,” Harris says.

Inspired by moments like this, Young and Harris began casually brainstorming ways to improve children’s development before they enter formal schooling. The two toyed with the idea of a project modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone, a nonprofit organization that has garnered national attention for providing educational resources and other forms of support to low-income families living in Harlem, New York.

Young, Harris, and others on the Cambridge Schools Committee devised “Full Circle,” a proposed initiative to better connect the residents of Area Four—a low-income area where 80 percent of elementacary school students receive free lunches, according to Harris—to the public benefits provided by the city government and local nonprofits.

Full Circle—if it comes to fruiton—will be a culmination of several youth-oriented projects that Cambridge has undertaken in past years. But financing and potential partnerships are still up in the air.

The project, inspired by the work of HCZ founder Geoffrey Canada, a Harvard Graduate School of Education alumnus, marks the next chapter in efforts to improve Cambridge’s public education—a movement that Harvard and its alumni frequently influence.

CIRCLE GAME

Full Circle is envisioned not as a single nonprofit organization like HCZ but as a collaboration between many different entities in Cambridge. Based at Fletcher-Maynard, Full Circle would focus its efforts on the children living in the one-mile radius surrounding the school known as Area Four.

In Area Four, located between Central Square and Kendall Square, the median family income is $55,857, one of the lowest in the city, according to a report issued this year by the Cambridge Community Development Department.

The initiative plans to capitalize on already-existing Cambridge programming. One of those programs, Baby University, was founded after several Cambridge officials visited the Harlem Children’s Zone a few years ago. The program is loosely based on HCZ’s Baby College, which offers nine-week parenting classes.

Baby University, a 16-week publicly-funded program under the Cambridge Department of Human Services Programs, draws support from collaborations with many Cambridge nonprofits, including the the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard.

As the Cambridge Department of Education begins initial preparations for Full Circle, Baby University will be held at Fletcher-Maynard this year for the first time since the program began in 2010. Full Circle will also include Toddler University, an all-day course for parents of children ages three to eight that will kick off in 2013.

Harris has had discussions with other potential collaborators, including the Cambridge Health Alliance, neighborhood clergy and churches, financial institutes, and the Cambridge Police Department.

She hopes that Full Circle, like other Cambridge educational programs, will be able to draw upon Harvard University resources as well.

After talks about the Full Circle initiative became more serious, Young approached Ed School Dean Kathleen McCartney, who expressed enthusiasm about the program, Harris says.

Harris also asked Canada for advice on the project when he visited the Ed School last month. Harris says Canada was supportive of the project and urged her to get the partnering agencies in place immediately.

Harris said she hopes to agree with the Ed School on a memorandum of understanding between Harvard and Full Circle at the beginning of the academic year. Citing the preliminary nature of the discussion, Ed School officials declined to comment on Harvard’s involvement.

Though partnerships have yet to be officially tied down, many civic leaders have said they are excited about the Full Circle initiative.

“It’s all supposed to be very intentional work, and it’s a great opportunity to take all these resources that are happening in Cambridge,” says Nancy Tauber, a former School Committee member.

IN THE ZONE

Though Full Circle has generated much enthusiasm in Cambridge, financing for the project has yet to be secured.

According to Lori Likis, chief planning officer for Cambridge public schools, financing for Full Circle will include funds from the Department of Human Services Programs, resources allocated to Cambridge public schools, and other funding put toward the Cambridge Innovation Agenda in the 2013 budget.

Likis says that the initiative has also looked to other sources for financial support.

Full Circle is known among educators and policymakers as a wraparound zone, a city-led initiative that seeks to make social services and support more accessible and foster the creation of educational resources.

Wraparound zones elsewhere have received funding and support from Massachusett’s federally-funded Race to the Top program. However, Cambridge’s Full Circle was not eligible for funding due to restrictions stipulated by the state. Likis and other Full Circle proponents pushed to receive an exception, but it was not granted.

Jesse Dixon, who heads the Massachusetts Department of Education’s Office of District and School Turnaround, says that while the state would consider funding initiatives such as Full Circle, the guidelines regulating Race to the Top funding might confine the project’s development.

Under the initiative, cities must commit $100,000 of their Race to the Top money to the zone and must follow a prescriptive approach for the modeling and implementation of the wraparound zone.

Cambridge’s vision for Full Circle does not fall under these guidelines, according to Dixon.

“[Cambridge has] found their own way of doing this work, which isn’t 100 percent aligned with our vision,” Dixon says.

Nevertheless, those involved in the planning of Full Circle say they will continue to work toward establishing this project.

“We’re eager to get Full Circle up and running, develop the partnerships, assess the effectiveness of that, and then decide whether or not to expand,” Likis says.

—Staff writer Kerry M. Flynn can be reached at kflynn@college.harvard.edu.

The undergraduate and graduate students of Engineering Sciences 227 displayed their designs—some intended to solve problems that have previously confounded researchers worldwide—to surgeons and engineers at a fair on Monday.

The course, now in its second year, offered engineering students the opportunity to develop a project with the potential to affect surgical procedures, according to mechanical and biomedical engineering professor Conor J. Walsh, who teaches it.

Students and professors at the fair in Pierce Hall were eager to hear about the new breakthroughs and feats of engineering produced by the class. However, every project was tagged with a confidentiality notice cautioning that specifics of the projects cannot be broadcast.

For some students, the chance to physically manufacture a device after designing it was most rewarding.

"Actually building the device—that was a special experience," said Oliver Schoppe, a visiting student who took the class.

It was a work-intensive experience as well. Qian Wan, a graduate student who was one of Schoppe’s project partners, said, "There was definitely a lot to absorb very quickly."

Graduate student Carlos Pardo added, "This was a crash course in design—in six weeks we needed to have a prototype. However, our professor guided us and cut it into small pieces."

The students worked with physicians who guided their projects and provided frequent access to hospitals and special equipment.

"Students and physicians develop a very close relationship. All of the physicians spend many hours providing the medical background to the students, meeting with them, Skyping with them, and bringing them into the hospital environment," Walsh said.

"All the physicians came with medical needs," said graduate student Kimberly M. Murdaugh ’11.

Murdaugh’s group successfully completed a project that others had failed at before.

According to group member Alexander Isakov ’11, a graduate student, researchers both at MIT and in India had unsucessfully tried their task before they began it.

When asked why their attempt succeeded, William C. Burke ’12 noted that they did not try to build on previous designs or prototypes. "We started from nothing," he said.

Like other engineering classes in the 200s, ES 227 is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Such classes traditionally attract more graduate students than undergraduates. ES 227, however, was nearly evenly split.

"This year the class had 16 students with seven undergraduates, which is great to see," Walsh said.

The University is currently in the midst of a two-year process of reviewing its sexual assault policies to ensure that it is compliant with federal anti-discrimination law.

In April 2011, the Office for Civil Rights released a “Dear Colleague” letter outlining stricter guidelines for colleges and universities for dealing with sexual assault complaints in the wake of a stream of Title IX complaints filed against institutions of higher education, including Harvard Law School.

Last month, both the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell announced that they would modify their sexual assault policies, joining Yale and Stanford in altering their standards in response to the letter. Both the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell adopted the lower standard of “preponderance of the evidence” mandated by the “Dear Colleague” letter, which allows an accused student to be found guilty if the institution is at least 51 percent certain of his or her responsibility for an alleged incident. Previously, some institutions, including Harvard Law School and Princeton, had used a higher “burden of proof” standard, which required “clear and convincing” evidence of the accused student’s guilt.

Peter F. Lake ‘81, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who specializes in higher education law, said he thinks that Harvard could be influenced by the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell to conform to the “Dear Colleague” letter.

“As schools choose to come into compliance, it does build momentum for similar schools to take similar action,” Lake said.

New England School of Law Professor Wendy Murphy, who filed a 2002 Title IX complaint against the College and the 2010 complaint against the Law School, said she thought that the growing trend among institutions to adopt the “preponderance of evidence” standard have made it increasingly “embarrassing” for any school, including Harvard, to hold out.

Currently, Harvard’s investigation system for sexual assault varies across the University.

While the Faculty of Arts and Sciences requires that the Administrative Board be “sufficiently persuaded” of the accused student’s guilt to issue a guilty verdict, the Law School uses the “burden of proof” standard.

Lake said that although he thinks the “Dear Colleague” letter prescribes “a monotheistic universe,” mandating a single set of values for all institutions of higher education, he does see room in the federal guidelines for Harvard to maintain different policies across its schools as long as the University can prove that a central source is coordinating the different processes.

But Murphy said she thinks Harvard must uniformly adopt a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in order to come into compliance with the federal guidelines.

“Under the tougher standard, schools have their cake and get to eat it too,” said Murphy, who said she thought it was “very heartening” to see the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell change their sexual assault policies.

But Murphy said she thought the Law School’s “burden of proof” standard sends a message to students making an accusation of sexual assault that “‘we do believe you­—we just don’t believe you that much.’”

Two years ago, Harvard began collecting information to assess how well its sexual assault investigation processes and other University policies adhered to federal Title IX regulations, which require colleges and universities to take “immediate and appropriate steps” in response to a sexual misconduct grievance. Last fall, Chief Diversity Officer Lisa M. Coleman told The Crimson that the University was approaching its review process with an eye toward collecting data and developing programs, rather than revising its sexual assault investigation policies. Although the University had at one point planned to involve a student committee in the review process, the creation of that committee was indefinitely postponed last October.

Lake said that the release of the “Dear Colleague” letter sparked a flurry of changes among many institutions, who swiftly revised their policies in accordance with the new Title IX regulations.

“Certainly schools felt a tremendous pressure to scramble as quickly as they could to figure out how to come into compliance,” Lake said.

Lake said he anticipates a legal battle about the constitutionality of the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which he thinks may violate accused students’ constitutional right of due process.

Lake added that he thinks the “Dear Colleague” letter puts institutions like Harvard in a difficult position.

Colleges and universities must face the question: “’Do I hold out and violate a federal mandate and face sanctions, or do I potentially violate the due process rights of students?’” Lake said. “That’s a heck of a choice.”

­—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.

In January, Harvard University Library Executive Director Helen Shenton said that the University would seek to reduce the size of its library staff as part of its ongoing library reorganization.

The University has yet to specify its goal for staff reductions.

VERIP offered library employees who are 55 years and older with 10 years of service under their belts a chance to receive benefits and avoid possible layoffs.

Approximately 23 percent of the 280 eligible employees accepted the offer. There are currently 930 full-time employees in the University library system.

Those who accepted the offer will receive six months’ pay, plus two additional weeks’ pay for every year of employment beyond 10 years. An employee cannot receive more than one year’s worth of salary under the package.

A University spokesperson declined Thursday to specify whether or not the Harvard University Library will layoff employees in its attempt to cut down its staff size.

Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library Mary Lee Kennedy and Shenton praised the departing library staff members in a statement sent to library employees on Tuesday.

“The 65 staff members who will be leaving us are dedicated members of a workforce that supports Harvard’s mission every day. We wish them well as they begin a new phase of life, whether that means starting a new job or planning for retirement,” Shenton and Kennedy wrote.

Administrators have drawn criticism during the transition process for a lack of transparency and a failure of communication. Kennedy and Shenton sought to address these concerns in their statement to staff.

“It is not easy to adapt to working without valued colleagues and familiar faces by our sides,” they wrote. “Please know that as we work through the library transition, we will make every effort to support and keep open the lines of communication with our staff, whose dedication and hard work make Harvard great.”

Shenton and Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

—Staff writer Justin C. Worland can be reached at jworland@college.harvard.edu.

A sandwich stand on Harvard Medical School property that has long been beloved by the Longwood Medical Area community has been threatened with closure if it does not make improvements to meet city codes.

During a routine check in March, Boston inspectors flagged Sami’s Wrap and Roll, a sandwich shop that has done business on Medical School property for 33 years. The City of Boston determined that since the stand is not on wheels, it does not qualify as a portable establishment like a food truck and is instead subject to the codes for permanent structures—meaning it would need plumbing to legally stay open.

“When you have a permanent structure, you must comply with different regulations,” said Lisa M. Timberlake, a spokesperson for Boston Inspectional Services.

Sami’s currently pays rent to Harvard, and Harvard pays the stand’s electricity costs. The University will not install plumbing at Sami’s, according to Richard M. Shea, the associate dean for physical planning and facilities for the Medical School.

The small business was initially given until Friday to stay open unless it made changes but was granted a 30-day extension on Thursday after G. Sami Saba, who owns the stand with his wife Amy, went to City Hall to seek a reprieve.

Sami’s is a popular lunch stop for Medical School students and for employees of the many Harvard-affiliated medical institutions in the area.

Stacey M. Brown, a project manager at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, gets her daily coffee from Amy Saba at Sami’s.

“Amy knew my name and exactly what I was going to order,” Brown said. “Wherever I go to get my coffee, it’s not going to be the same.”

Sami G. Saba, the owners’ son, said that he expects the stand will be forced to close if the city does not grant it a permit even without plumbing.

“This location is my parents’ only source of income,” the younger Sami said. “If they lose this, pretty much they’re going to lose the house.”

The Saba family started a petition online to muster support for the business. As of Thursday night, 221 people had signed.

Calling the potential closure of Sami’s “a terrible shame” and asking the city and Harvard not to “rob future generations of HMS students of the tradition of delicious, convenient Sami’s,” dozens of commenters spoke of the importance of the Sabas and their food to the Longwood Medical Area community.

One signer wrote, “This place is an icon. We, as residents, have to save this institution. It has kept many folks visiting loved ones in the hospitals well fed for years. Food being comfort, this place has been a rock for some.”

Another contributed, “We need Sami’s! Sami’s staff is the nicest, the food is wonderful, the cart looks nice where it is and it makes so many people happy. It is a major part of the Longwood community. Don’t ruin tradition.”

The Saba family wrote in the petition that they hope to buy a food truck and obtain a license to park on any public property. The petition includes a link to donate via PayPal to help the family purchase a truck.

The younger Sami said he was disappointed that Harvard has not made an effort to help the stand survive.

Shea, the Medical School administrator, said that he would consider approving an appropriately sized truck if the Sabas obtain one.

Speaking of the truck’s long residency at the Medical School, Shea said he would like to see it remain. “It works for us and has worked for us for a long time,” he said.

—Staff writer Maya S. Jonas-Silver can be reached at mayajonas-silver@college.harvard.edu.

At its founding eight years ago, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute had fewer than ten principal faculty members, according to Benjamin D. Humphreys, co-director of the HSCI Kidney Program. Today, that number has ballooned to more than 80.

In the past decade, Harvard has increasingly poured resources into groundbreaking research in one of the largest collections of stem cell research labs in the country.

According to HSCI co-director Douglas A. Melton, a professor in the stem cell and regenerative biology department, there are more than 800 Harvard affiliates in stem cell science scattered throughout roughly 80 laboratories. The largest concentration of stem cell researchers are located in Harvard’s Sherman Fairchild Building, which reopened in August of 2011 after it underwent a two-year demolition and reconstruction project to accommodate the stem cell and regenerative biology department.

In the past decade, Harvard has focused on centralizing this research with the creation of HSCI and the stem cell and regenerative biology department.

HSCI consists of scientists and practitioners interested in stem cell research from all over the Harvard community, including the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the medical school, and 11 teaching hospitals and research institutions including the Children’s Hospital Boston and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

So far, HSCI has given out more than $100 million to its researchers, according to Humphreys.

"[Harvard has] definitely made a tangible commitment to stem cell research," Humphreys said. "The results are that we are leaders in certain areas—certainly I can speak of the kidney—not even just in the U.S., but worldwide in terms of stem cell research in the kidney."

With important potential applications such as the generation of cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies, stem cells are at the forefront of scientific research. Stem cells, which can differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat some of the most serious diseases.

"What we’re doing at the HSCI Kidney Group is working collaboratively to identify new therapeutic strategies that will help slow disease progression," said Humphreys.

Still, Humphreys added that much more research is necessary before scientists can use stem cells to their fullest potential.

"Of course, making an artificial kidney would be one application," said Humphreys. "But truthfully, the kidney is so complicated that it’s second in complexity only to the brain in a number of cell types.... Making a truly artificial kidney in vitro is probably a long way off."

Regarding Harvard’s role in stem cell research, Humphreys said that he thinks Harvard should focus on developing and training the next generation of stem cell and regenerative medicine researchers who will make the big discoveries that will lead to transformative changes in the way doctors treat patients.

The human developmental and regenerative biology concentration, founded in 2009, will graduate its first class of more than 40 seniors this spring, according to Harvard College Facebook.

"[Harvard’s role is] to stimulate a dialogue through basic science and through public outreach by bringing people together, bringing our message out to other places to stimulate the discussion worldwide, and leading by example in order to fulfill the promises of this field," Humphreys said.

—Staff writer Cynthia W. Shih can be reached at cshih@college.harvard.edu.

Brown has joined the group of Republican senators blocking a Democratic effort to pass legislation which would prevent interest rates on student loans from rising.

This move has sparked criticism from Warren, who strongly supports the bill. In a statement issued by her campaign, Warren called for students to rally against Scott’s vote on this legislation.

"Young people here in Massachusetts and across the country who are working hard and building a future—and our nation’s future—by investing in their education, should not suddenly face higher interest rates on their student loans," Warren said in a statement.

If Congress does not take action, 7.4 million college students nationwide may see interest rates on their federally subsidized Stafford loans double.

The interest rate for these loans currently sits at 3.4 percent, regulated by a provision passed by Congress in 2007. This rate, however, will spike to 6.8 percent on July 1, if Congress does not take measures to extend the current lower rate.

Stafford loans, typically taken out by middle class students, allow students to pay no interest while in colleges and then below market rates afterwards.

Institute of Politics Director C. M. "Trey" Grayson ’94 said that this debate over student loans has become important in the Massachusetts Senate race as well as in the presidential election because of its potential influence on college-age voters.

Grayson said that by joining this effort to filibuster the student loan legislation, Brown is attempting to maintain his image as a fiscally responsible legislator.

However, Grayson said that it is difficult for Brown to tout being on the defensive by blocking the bill.

"It puts him in a tough spot," Grayson said.

On Monday, Brown introduced his own legislation that would also keep interest rates on student loans low.

"It’s time to stop playing politics and get to work on a real bipartisan compromise to preserve current student loan rates. The job market is dismal and the cost of getting a college education is out of control," said Brown in a statement.

Though this issue may blow over quickly, the debate shows that Democrats, mindful of keeping their control of the Senate and retaking the House in this fall’s elections, are trying to force Republicans to vote against popular legislation in hopes of winning voters’ favor, Grayson said.

"They’re going to probably try to force [Brown] and some of the other vulnerable Republicans to do party line votes," Grayson said.

The Warren campaign’s statement pointed to a new study released on Monday by ProgressMass which shatters the "Brown bipartisanship myth" by showing that Brown votes "overwhelmingly" with Republicans.

Grayson said this debate over student loans might help Warren divert attention from Republicans’ claims [LINK] that her claims to Native American heritage are unsubstantiated and that she therefore may have committed academic fraud when applying for a position at Harvard Law School by deceiving the University into believing that she is Native American.

—Staff Writer Elizabeth S. Auritt can be reached at eauritt@college.harvard.edu.

This year’s yield, which measures the percentage of accepted students who choose to enroll at Harvard, marks the first time this number has reached 80 percent since the class of 1975 was admitted.

"It is a major jump," Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said.

In December, Harvard admitted 772 students under its early action program. Another 1,260 acceptances were extended in March. Overall, 1,641 of those admitted to the Class of 2016 accepted their offer of admission from Harvard.

Due to this high yield a very small number of students will be taken off the waitlist, approximately 25, Fitzsimmons said. The admissions office began reviewing waitlisted applications on Thursday, he added.

Though this year’s yield is not the highest the College has ever seen, Fitzsimmons said it is certainly the highest in the modern era of highly competitive college admissions, especially at the most selective institutions.

"It was a very different world. Harvard and our peer institutions were not anywhere near the national and international institutions they are today. It’s really almost like apples and oranges," he said.

Fitzsimmons said he attributes this significant increase in the yield to three factors—the return of early action, the continuing poor economic climate, and an increase in awareness of new programs at the College.

Fitzsimmons said that the renewed early action program was expected to have a significant influence on the yield. According to Fitzsimmons, students who apply early typically have a stronger interest in Harvard than those who apply regular decision, and are thus less likely to apply elsewhere when admitted early and are more likely to attend.

Fitzsimmons added that the College’s financial aid program continues to encourage students to matriculate.

"The financial aid program continues to be paramount in people’s decisions, even the people who might not be on financial aid, but who see what might happen to them and to their own jobs and their own financial situations," he said.

In addition, Fitzsimmons named the increased public profile of a number of newly introduced programs at the College—including new engineering programs at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—as factors in students’ decision to matriculate.

Of the other Ivy League universities, only Dartmouth has released its yield rate of 49.5 percent. Harvard’s yield is typically the highest among peer institutions.

—Staff writer Elizabeth S. Auritt can be reached at eauritt@college.harvard.edu.

Larsen’s book chronicles the experiences of William E. Dodd, the American Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, and his family as they represented America during the years leading up to the outbreak of World War II.

“What would it have been like to be in Berlin in the 1930s and to not have known what was coming?” said Larsen.

He said he had been intrigued by Dodd because of Dodd’s lack of experience in politics, but wanted to focus the narrative on his daughter, Martha Dodd, who had countless affairs with powerful men in the Third Reich, and whose personal correspondences and diaries—which span seventy linear feet of writing—are preserved in the Library of Congress.

The talk also featured rare footage from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of Martha Dodd and the various men she interacted with while in Berlin.

Another clip showed President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressing the American people as he stated them that “the United States must remain...un-entangled and free,” even while reports of violence in Germany appeared in newspapers every day.

“The problem with ‘could have done’ and ‘would have done’ is we didn’t do it,” said Larsen, refocusing his audience’s concern from what American failed to do to stop the Holocaust to what we must do as a country to prevent future genocides.

The title for Larsen’s book refers to the Tiergarten, the central park in Berlin around which many governmental buildings of the Third Reich were located.

“All of the action, at least in the book, takes place around the garden because it was the only place you could go without feeling surveyed,” Larsen said.

One couple in the audience said that they were convinced to visit Berlin after reading Larsen’s book. Mae Rockland Tupa said that her grandparents died in World War II after running to a synagogue that was soon torched.

“I had not wanted to go to Berlin for all those reasons, but...we said, ‘we have to visit Berlin to get things in perspective,’” Tupa said.

“Walking through the Tiergarten, we could recall passages from the book,” her husband Myron Tupa added.

—Staff writer Virgina R. Marshall can be reached at virginarosemarshall@college.harvard.edu.