One day, we saw smoke at the SS accommodations coming up.
They were burning papers. We saw papers coming up.
Flying up into the air, in the flames.
They were burning the evidence, all evidence.
And, eventually, the, without, that we knew, they flew. They ran away.
We didn't know yet, and then the Russians came and we were liberated.
They looked at us and they left because there was still the war.
They had, they were fighting the war. So we were there.
Four days later, they came and they gave us food.
At the time, the British entered the camp and my mother told my brothers,
"Do not eat the food from the soldiers." I don't know how she knew that.
But she just told him, "Don't eat the food from the soldiers."
And the soldiers, meaning well, gave them hard food like chocolate, whatever they had.
And their stomachs could not tolerate it.
But my mother, unbelievable. She really was truly unbelievable.
The story of his liberation actually had occurred probably April 28th or 29th.
He was on a train. Of all things, he was on a train that was on its way to I don't know where.
And the train, the engine, the locomotive was bombed and the train was disabled.
And it was American forces. They pried the cattle cars open and
the way he used to tell the story was first, they waited for all of the bodies to fall out.
And then once the bodies all fell out, they all jumped out of the train and they ran away.
And he ran, he spent one night, I believe he would say that he spent one night in a
farmhouse with several of his other escapees.
So he was among the first of that group to be liberated.
The English army was very nice. First, they wanted to grab the children.
I was trying to hide from them because I didn't want to leave my mother.
My mother couldn't walk.
She was maybe 70 pounds, just bone and skin.
They took us to the ambulance.
This is very difficult.
My mother crawled to the truck. They put her on the truck to...
They took us to the...to the...emergency hospital.
We came home from work.
We didn't go back to the camp. We walked on a highway and the,
the German people were watching us. We were just walking, we didn't know what's going on.
And, all of a sudden, we're looking back to all the Germans.
They disappeared. We were free. Nobody was watching us.
We were on a highway. You didn't see any houses, nothing.
Just a flat thing.
And, all of a sudden, we see trucks are coming with the Russian soldiers.
And then we realized they're going to free us.
They didn't know who we are because we looked like crazy people.
No hair, with the striped dresses. Freezing.
So, all of a sudden, from nowhere one soldier came in the front.
He's telling me, he's telling for us, "Amhof."
I didn't even know what it meant that time.
And he was a Jewish soldier.
Yeah, we found out there was a train going.
We were already in Hungary that time, but we had to go back.
And it was at night, so we arrived 12 o'clock midnight.
It was maybe two miles from where I lived, so it was work in the morning and then...
The government, the governor saw me, you know, but he was not our governor
because the Russian Communists took over.
So he said to me...
He asked if anybody's...
If anybody was alive. I said no.
Then he said to me, "Come to my house."
"Your father left a thousand dollars."
So he gave it to me.
And we were able to get mail from America from my uncle.
And right away, he sent a telegram. Right away, he's going to help us.
He sent us, sponsored us to come to America. I came 1947.
And the guide took us across the border. Now what was the border there?
A little stream made the border between France and Switzerland.
So he carried us across the water so we wouldn't be wet, told us which direction we have
to walk in order to get the streetcar to go into Geneva, gave us some
Swiss money so we could pay our fare. And we made it.
The UNRRA had arranged the transportation of so-called
displaced persons who were in, had been in
concentration camps in Germany to America.
We went on a troop transport ship to America.
Again, I was sitting on the third floor of a three-bedded room, but this one was
wonderful and the food was excellent, which we had to take in standing like
the soldiers apparently had in the basement of the ship.
We arrived in America and saw the Statue of Liberty.
I remember when the war was over and the newsreels came out of the British
and the Americans and the Russians liberating the camps.
And we saw all those dead bodies. I said, "Well, it could be my parents."
We had no idea. They took four months.
We got a letter from the Red Cross. Was afraid to open it because it means
either they're dead or alive. They went to hell, but survived.
So I came to the United States in 1947. My brother and sister stayed in England,
but in all those years I've gone back and they've come here visiting.
Being a child of a survivor, of two survivors, it didn't really sink in until much later.
I remember when I was 12, and that's when I said, "How come I don't have - "
Because everybody's going Thanksgiving and then all these holidays.
"How come we don't have grandparents?"
So my mother's answer was that, she just said that they were killed.
They died, no, they died.
My father didn't talk about the DP camp very much.
I had on my own joined a group of children of survivors.
The name of the group was "The Generation After," and I started to go to meetings
and I educated myself largely about the Holocaust.
And...and I guess one day, I just asked my parents about it.
I was the catalyst. He was really like a spigot.
He went from never saying a word to you couldn't get him to shut up.
He had so much to say.
And my mother said her father suddenly burst out with, "Who will tell our story?"
"Who will tell what happened to us? Who will tell of our suffering? Who will tell of our despair?"
And my mother made him a promise right then and there that if she
survived, if she lived, she would tell the story.
And so, in the year 2000, my mother's book "Our Tomorrows Never Came"
was published by Fordham University Press.
But that was the promise that my mother had made to
her father when he said, "Who will tell of our despair?" And all that, and she said she'll do it.
I want they should remember what we went through.
We lost six million people, you know. Innocent people. We were innocent.
What did I do? Nothing, only because I'm Jewish, that's it.
But I know I'm here. My kids were born here. Just that was the best thing to me.
Me, personally. Love life.
Enjoy every day, be nice to your neighbor, be nice.
You know, be kind. If I had one message I'd like people to do is to be kind.
I think that would be the message.
The Holocaust started with words. With hate and with words.
With bullying, telling the Jew to get off the sidewalk and stand in the street is bullying.
And it's the beginning.
Talk to people. Respect everyone.
Learn about them, learn about other cultures, learn about the world.
You've got to learn because we were brought up with hate.
And not respect other people. And look down on people.
And in this country, it's so wonderful you can learn about everyone.
No matter how old you are, you can always learn.
And I think this will...that's our solution.
As for how to prevent hatred, I think this center does a good job
of presenting viciousness and how destructive it is,
and it's a huge challenge because, for example, my students,
the majority of them didn't know about World War II in Europe.
Then again, I didn't know about what their hell was in, in their countries.
So if they come here and they're educated here,
to understand how destructive it is to hate...
In the midst of all hell, there are extraordinary people
who, without questioning their own safety, will come out and do
what is the right thing, who don't question.
You know, who don't hesitate. They only know in order to do the right thing,
you have to act in accordance to what your heart tells you immediately.
That happened to us several times and that's why I'm here.
That's why my family was here.
That we try to let everybody know what we went through.
In today's world, we talk about anti-Semitism, which is
happening today, and then sometimes people really do not get it.
We try to talk, we pull our, put our heart out and you could see it's not easy.
But some people just don't want to get it, and then we say, "What's the use?"
So we want people to understand they have to listen to what we're saying because it happened then,
it's starting to happen now, and people should be vigilant. It should never happen again.
I have only two words: Never again.
It should never happen again.
Should never happen again.
And then if you remember history, then maybe you won't repeat it. Except she knows,
she would say a lot of the Holocaust survivors would end their speech with, "Never again."
"You hope it never happens again."
My mother ended hers with saying, "No, it has happened again."
She's sorry, she knows it's happened again.
But you still have to keep trying.