A Childhood Stolen — David’s Survival Through Auschwitz and Beyond
David was only ten years old when the Nazis ordered the Jews in his small Polish town to leave their homes with nothing more than what they could carry. His parents, his stepmother, and the dozen Jewish families who lived there were forced into a ghetto, registered, numbered, and stripped of identity. That was the beginning of five and a half years of brutality he would spend surviving camps, labor details, starvation, and Auschwitz.
He was assigned an age of fifteen and labeled a “mechanic” — a lie that kept him alive. After six months in the ghetto, all men and boys deemed fit for work were taken away. David and his father were sent to a labor camp near Poznań, where a sports stadium had been turned into barracks. His name was erased and replaced with a number: 176.
Most prisoners were forced into backbreaking labor building the Autobahn. David, who spoke German, convinced a foreman to let him work in a trailer cleaning, polishing boots, and doing odd jobs — a small change that spared him from the worst labor. It wouldn’t be the last time his quick thinking helped him survive.
He witnessed beatings, deaths, starvation, and the public hanging of three boys accused of begging for bread. He spent months desecrating cemeteries under SS orders — opening graves, removing valuables, and collecting gold teeth. It was gruesome, dehumanizing work, but refusing it meant death.
After more than two years, the camp was liquidated. The prisoners were put on trains — not cattle cars, but passenger cars, because “mechanics” were valuable. They were sent to Auschwitz.
When he arrived, music played at the gates, and he saw the infamous sign: “Arbeit Macht Frei.” He had no idea what Auschwitz was. He walked in like a boy in shock.
His number changed again — now tattooed permanently: A-141631.
David’s German helped him secure a job inside a weapons factory building 88mm guns. When he slipped a piece of bread into a drawer, an SS guard beat him violently. He expected to be killed. Instead, he was taken to a commander who threatened to hang him “upside down next time.” David survived by pleading that he needed to get back to work “for the Fatherland.” It was absurd, but it worked.
On January 17, 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated. David was pushed into a cattle car packed with prisoners, dead and alive, and traveled for nearly six days with no food, no heat, and no sanitation. He rigged a tin cup through the window to collect snow — the only reason he survived the journey.
He ended up in Mauthausen, and then in Gusen II, where prisoners slept on floors, starved, and worked inside mountain tunnels building aircraft components. On May 7, 1945, the guards suddenly announced that the Americans would arrive the next day. David didn’t believe freedom was possible until he saw U.S. tanks rolling down the mountain.
After liberation, he regained strength slowly. He tried to immigrate to the U.S., but Poland’s quota blocked him, so he made his way through Italy, then Paris. There, he unexpectedly met the woman who would become his wife — a fellow survivor who had escaped detection by being made to look older with makeup.
Together, they immigrated to the United States, married again (because their European marriage wasn’t recognized), and rebuilt their lives. David worked hard, eventually opening his own interior decorating business in New York and later in Pennsylvania.
For over 30 years, David has dedicated his life to speaking to students about the Holocaust. He does it for free, simply to ensure people learn, remember, and understand.
His message is direct:
“Never forget. Stay educated. Fight hate. And don’t take this country for granted — people don’t know how good they have it.”