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Hall’s family had hidden from the Nazisfor years before he was born. Desperateto protect his family from the death camps,Hall’s father, Edmund Horskey, posed as aGerman Aryan and rented an office on the13th floor of the Hotel Warsaw in Februaryof 1942. Hall’s mother, Maria Horskey,and then 6-year-old brother, Adam JanushHorowitz (now Allan Hall), did not leavethat office for more than two years. WhenEdmund left for work, Maria and Adam hidin a dark closet during the day, only a whisperaway from disaster.“Literally across the partition, therewas an office full of people working, andif they would’ve heard us, that would’vebeen instant death,” said Allan Hall,Andrew’s older brother who also graduatedfrom UF Law in 1968. “Directly twofloors above us was the Polish headquartersof the German Luftwaffe, which wasthe air force in Poland. My father’s theorywas that the closer we got to their headquarters,the less likely they were to lookfor us.”In August of 1944, the Poles roseagainst their Nazi occupiers in the heroicbut doomed Warsaw Uprising. Hall’sfamily moved from the office to anotherbuilding’s coal cellar where he waseventually born. Allan Hall remembersrunning through sniper fire to get there.Although the coal cellar was thought tobe safer than the rented room, it was amiracle that the family lived through it.“In the shelter, at that point my motherwas already pregnant, a V-2 rocket landed,and the only reason we’re here to tellyou about it is because it didn’t explode,”Allan Hall said. “I clearly rememberwalking over to where it had penetratedthe street and the ground and came all theway down to the sub-basement where wewere. I remember seeing four or six feetof it exposed, and we could clearly see theGerman marking on it.”“[Terrorismcases] are morevisible, so thestakes arehigher.”The Polish rebellion surrendered inOctober. Warsaw’s German conquerorsordered everyone to leave and thenburned the city to the ground. Still workingto avoid capture, Hall’s family escapedthrough the sewer system. The exhaustedfamily made its way to Krakow,Poland, arriving in November of 1944and remaining until the war’s end.Although Hall was too young to rememberhis life in Warsaw, it still impactshim today.“One of the things that happens to thefamilies of Holocaust survivors is thoseexperiences don’t leave your house,” Hallsaid. “They’re there every day. It is theprimary subject of conversation betweenyour parents and friends. So you grow upin an environment steeped in a sense ofinjustice at the highest level and what it isyou can do to make sure it never happensagain. It’s very much a profound part ofmy personality.”THE ESCAPEA few years after the war ended, Hall’sfather was arrested by Poland’s new communistregime. Hall’s mother did notwant to take any risks with the safety ofher sons, and she sent them out of Polandwith other Jewish war orphans makingtheir way to Palestine, now Israel.For nine months, Hall and his brotherwandered through Europe without theirparents and without identification papers.“We would walk 15, 20, 30 milesa day with Andy mostly riding on myshoulders,” Allan Hall said.During the trip, Andrew contractedmeasles and Allan stayed with him in aGerman hospital while the group of orphanscontinued their journey. Meanwhile,the boys’ parents, after EdmundHorskey escaped from incarceration,searched for their children, hitting a coldtrail in Munich. In a weird twist of fate,they recognized a cousin on a MunichAndrew Hall, right, asattorney for the families ofsailors killed in the bombingof the USS Cole, speaks withreporters outside the NorfolkFederal Court building inNorfolk, Va., Feb. 27, 2007.AP PHOTO/GARY C. KNAPP24 UF LAW