Maurice Sendak was born June 10, 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were poor immigrants from Poland who came to America before World War I. Many of his relatives died in the Holocaust, and this was an important influence upon his childhood. His parents were always upset about the relatives they had lost and the cloud of death was always in the air. He even drew the faces of some of his relatives who died in the Holocaust in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Zlateh the Goat. Sendak is the youngest of three children. He was also a very sickly child, who always caught pneumonia or some sort of illness. He grew up under the constant fear of his own death. His mother was very concerned,