In 1941, in war-ravaged Europe, Nazi soldiers forced Jews from their homes and into death camps, and three young strangers appeared on my grandmother's doorstep in Naousa, Greece.

A 22-year-old woman clutched her 5-month-old baby, her 15-year-old brother-in-law by her side. They were accompanied by a police officer with a bold request: They'd lost their home; could they stay?

"Why not?" my great-grandfather said, as my grandmother recalled in a recent phone call. When her father learned, three months later, that the three people bunking upstairs were Jewish, he asked just one more question: "Don't you have any other family? Bring them over."

And so, relying on my family for their safety, seven stranded Jews hid in two upstairs bedrooms for four years, while my grandmother, who was just 15, her parents, eight siblings and, at one point, two German soldiers, dwelled below.

Outside, Nazis consumed the town. Bodies were strewn about the streets. Death was a constant threat for her hidden house guests -- and for her family, if they were discovered.

This clandestine arrangement saved some lives, risked even more and ended in the creation of my Jewish-American family.

Now 83, my grandmother -- I call her Nana -- still has vivid memories. She speaks of German soldiers routinely knocking on her door in search of Jews. Of pretending the seven refugees were relatives visiting from Albania when strangers wondered why they couldn't speak Greek. Of shuffling the Jews to and from a neighbor's house during the months when young German soldiers also shared the home.

This story has always given me a sense of my own place in history. The atrocities my relatives witnessed remain beyond my comprehension. But more striking to me is that their courage and compassion in protecting innocent strangers outweighed their sense of danger.

I'm not the only one impressed by the benevolence of my family, the Makas. Nana -- who became Rachel Benrubi when she took a Jewish name to marry my grandfather -- will be honored for their efforts as "righteous gentiles" at a Holocaust museum this spring in St. Louis, where she lives. It will be one of several tributes she's received in recent years.

With the attention she's getting, I, the scribe in the family, felt compelled to show my gratitude by sharing her story, one of countless tales of grace and humanity to emerge from the horrors of the Holocaust.

I owe my existence to my family's courage.

When the German occupation ended, the Jewish refugees returned to their home in Veria, Greece, about 30 miles away. A short time later, Nana, then 20, got on a Veria-bound truck to visit them. Before long, Nana spied "a good-looking boy" from their balcony -- a cousin of her Jewish friends and my future grandfather, Ruben Benrubi.

My grandfather -- I called him Papu -- was newly orphaned; his mother had died during childbirth when he was 16. His father was executed during the war. Five of his seven siblings had been captured and shot to death.

Nana's family, in contrast, had remained intact throughout the war, and she was one of nine siblings raised in a traditional, Greek Orthodox home.

Nana and Papu fell in love instantly, Nana recalled, and married in 1949.

The Jewish Welfare Federation moved my grandparents to the United States in 1951. They chose to settle in Indianapolis; "polis," the Greek word for "city," was a term they understood.

Growing up, I adored my grandmother simply because she was my Nana, who read to me and baked delicious cookies. Only now have I come to fully appreciate her remarkable bravery and strength and my storied roots.

The Holocaust, for me, was never just a history lesson. It was a painful piece of the past in which I had a personal stake.

My forbearers survived it. They faced their fears to save others. Sixty-four years later, I feel privileged to write about them.