Ben Lesser on Surviving Auschwitz, Founding the ZACHOR Foundation and Why Education Is the Only Antidote to Hate
…I lived in Los Angeles, and for many, many years — maybe forty or fifty — I could not talk about it. When my grandchildren were in school — my grandson, in fifth grade, called me one day. He said, “Papa, my teacher found out you are a Holocaust survivor. Would you come and tell us your story?” From that moment on, I started to speak — and have not stopped. I then founded the Zachor Holocaust Remembrance Foundation. We speak all over the world. In fact, I am very active in Germany. Germany gave me the highest civilian award they have. That was given to me by the Chancellor of German for the Zachor Foundation; for reminding the world what happened…
I had the pleasure of talking with Ben Lesser. Ben is one of the last living survivors of the Holocaust, a firsthand witness to some of the 20th century’s darkest chapters. Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1928, he endured ghettos, multiple concentration camps, death marches, and the systematic destruction of European Jewry. Raised in a middle-class Jewish family, Lesser grew up in a home filled with warmth and the entrepreneurial spirit of his father, who operated a kosher wine business and a chocolate factory. His early childhood in Kraków came to an abrupt end with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. At age ten, Lesser experienced the first of many atrocities that would define his teenage years — his family was beaten and robbed by Nazi soldiers within days of occupation, and a neighbor’s infant was murdered in front of them.
The Lesser family’s initial decision to avoid the Kraków Ghetto saved their lives temporarily. But as persecution intensified, they moved to Niepołomice, and later, under threat again, were forced into the Bochnia Ghetto. In the ghetto, Lesser worked sewing buttons in a uniform factory, often standing for hours without food or rest. Death raids were frequent, and escape meant risking everything. Eventually, his family undertook a harrowing smuggling operation — hidden beneath coal in a rigged truck — to flee across the Polish-Hungarian border. Only some survived.
By the time Ben Lesser was 16, he had lost nearly all his immediate family. His sister Goldie and younger brother Tuli were among the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Lesser survived multiple concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, and Dachau. He endured two death marches and two death trains. In Auschwitz, he passed through the infamous selections of Dr. Josef Mengele and carried with him a pair of shoes with diamonds hidden in the heels, gifted by his uncle for life-or-death situations.
One of his most harrowing experiences occurred during a forced punishment at Dürnhau labor camp, where he received twenty-five lashes for standing in place of his uncle. Other men ahead of him had died during the beatings. In another instance, aboard a transport train to Dachau, Lesser was stabbed while fighting for bread. His survival through seven weeks of a death march and the final days in Dachau, where he weighed less than fifty pounds, culminated in liberation by American soldiers in 1945.
After several weeks of recovery in a Bavarian monastery-turned-field hospital, Lesser eventually made his way to the United States in 1947. He arrived with no money, formal education, or English language skills. Settling first in Brooklyn and later in Los Angeles, he attended night school, learned English, and built a career in real estate. He founded Ben Lesser & Associates and rose to become president of the Los Angeles Westside Beverly Hills Brokers Association. In 1950, he married Jean Singer. The couple remained together for seventy-two years, raising two daughters, four grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren.
Lesser remained largely silent about his past for decades, unable to revisit the trauma. However, that changed when his grandson asked him to speak to a fifth-grade class. Since then, he has devoted his life to Holocaust education and remembrance. In 2009, he established the ZACHOR Holocaust Remembrance Foundation — named for the Hebrew word for “remember.” The organization distributes educational materials, facilitates speaking engagements, and supports classroom instruction across the United States and abroad.
He authored a memoir, Living a Life That Matters: From Nazi Nightmare to American Dream, which details his journey from survival to success. The book is now part of an outreach effort in Germany, where a sixty four-page German-language edition has been distributed to students across Bavaria. Germany’s government has recognized his work, awarding him its highest civilian honor for his educational outreach.
Lesser also launched the “I-SHOUT-OUT” campaign, inviting people to honor Holocaust victims by submitting a symbolic “shout-out” online. The initiative aims to gather six million digital pledges — one for each life lost. Another of his projects, the ZACHOR Holocaust Curriculum, is the first free, online curriculum created by a survivor. It is used in classrooms internationally and endorsed by major institutions, including Yad Vashem and USC Shoah Foundation.
Even at age 96, Lesser remains active. He speaks regularly to schools, faith groups, and civic organizations, often via video conference, and participates in educational campaigns around the world. He encourages future generations to reject hate, emphasizing that the Holocaust began not with extermination- but with propaganda and social division.
Lesser’s story, while unique in its scope and survival, is framed by his insistence that remembrance must be collective. His work underscores the urgency of education in an era where antisemitism continues to rise and Holocaust denial persists. Through his Foundation, public speaking, and teaching tools, Ben Lesser continues to ensure that the past is neither distorted nor forgotten.
Yitzi: Ben, it’s an honor to meet you. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn about your origin story. Can you share with us the story of your childhood and how you grew up?
Ben: Okay, Yitzi. I was born in Krakow, Poland. You have probably heard of Krakow. My mother came from Munkacs, Hungary. My father’s side is from Krakow, and my mother’s side is from Munkacs. This is a picture of my family — my father, Lazar Lesser, and my mother, Shari Sagel. My oldest brother, Moishe Lesser. Lola Liber is my only surviving sister. Goldie Lesser, my older sister. The middle picture is me when I was twelve years old. Tuli is my little brother. Out of our family of seven, only two of us survived — my sister Lola and me.
When the war broke out, my older sister Goldie was caught in Munkacs with my grandparents on my mother’s side. She was safe there because it was still Hungary, and Hungary was still a free country. Goldie stayed in Munkacs. The rest of us were in Poland.
My father’s business was wine and syrup. He manufactured kosher wine and syrup. He also had a chocolate factory. He was the first to make chocolate-covered wafers in Krakow, Poland. It was something like a Kit-Kat, but shaped like little animals — rabbits, bears — and wrapped in tinfoil. Every time my father came home, we kids would search his pockets. He always had some goodies in there.
We lived in a three-story building. One morning, the whole building started to shake. We ran to the window and saw tanks rolling down the street. Following the tanks were half-tracks. Every few steps, a soldier would jump out, get on the sidewalk, and that is how they occupied the city. There was no fighting. After them came the foot soldiers, with shiny black boots and goose steps. It was quite a sight for a ten-and-a-half-year-old. When they all passed, my father called us into the dining room. He sat us kids down and said, “From this moment on, there are no more kids. You are all adults. You obey. You listen. No backtalk.” That is how we grew up overnight.
On the fifth day of occupation in Krakow, a truck pulled up to the gate early in the morning, and they started banging. The superintendent ran out asking what was going on. All they wanted to know was where the Jewish people lived. He showed them our apartment — those three windows. He then showed the two windows of another Jewish couple who had two daughters younger than me and a baby boy who had just been born two months earlier.
They broke down the doors and pistol-whipped us while we were still in bed. They had sacks in their hands and were yelling for us to throw in all our valuables — money, gold, silver. Whatever they found, they threw in. My father was being beaten to open the safe. While he was trying to open it, we heard terrible screaming from the neighbors’ apartment. My sister Lola and I ran through the kitchen to their place. This is what we saw: a soldier was holding the infant by its legs, swinging it, and yelling at the parents: “Make him shut up.” The parents and the daughters were screaming, “Our baby, our baby, don’t hurt our baby.”
With a smirk on his face, clearly enjoying what he was doing, he smashed the baby’s head into a doorpost, killing it instantly. We all jumped on him, but other soldiers heard the commotion. They came in, pulled us off him, and pistol-whipped us. They were a little shocked too. One said, “Okay Hans, let’s go.”
They gathered all the valuables, tossed everything into a sack, threw the sack into the truck, and left.
That was the fifth day after the occupation.
From that day on, new ordinances came out daily. We had to wear a Star of David. By the way, the one I have here is French. It says “Juif,” which means “Jew” in French. We weren’t allowed to travel anymore. There was a curfew — 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Jews could not be on the streets. The strange thing was, there were no judges, no juries, not even prisons for Jews. If you broke any rule, they just shot you. Every morning, we saw dead people lying on the street. A new ordinance came out saying Jews could no longer live in Krakow. Yet, they gave us a choice: if you wanted to stay in Krakow, you had to move into the ghetto. Otherwise, you had to go to a small community outside the city. You could not live in the big city anymore.
My father was preparing to go into the ghetto. His family, numbering over 200, went into the ghetto. While he was packing, a young man named Michael Liber came to him and said, “Mr. Lesser, you know how I feel about your daughter Lola. I love her. Someday I would like to marry her. Please, come to the same community my parents and I are moving to — Niepołomice.” My father gave it serious thought and chose Niepołomice. That was the first miracle. I say this because a few months later, everyone in the ghetto was put into cattle cars and taken to an extermination camp called Belzec. Everyone was killed. Had we gone into the ghetto, I would not be here to tell you this story.
We later found out that my father’s businesses were confiscated. As he was loading the wagon, we discovered he had saved $1,000 in American money for a rainy day. He had hidden it inside a religious book and placed it in a sack with other religious books — Sforim. As we were leaving Krakow, about an hour outside the city, we were stopped. Two husky Nazis jumped on the wagon. The first thing they asked was if we had any Jewish books — Jewish literature. They found the two sacks of Sforim and dumped them all on the side of the road. My sister Lola spoke beautiful German. She went up to one of the Nazis and said, “My father is a writer. He wrote his autobiography. Let him keep just this one book.” Maybe he liked the way she spoke. He said, “Okay, I will give you five minutes to find it.” We all climbed on the pile of books, looking for the one with the money. All the books looked alike — leather-bound in brown or black. After five minutes, we had not found it. He chased us away. My father was now heading to a new community with a family of six — Goldie was still in Munkacs — and not a penny to his name. He could not even get a job because Jews were not allowed to be hired. You wouldn’t have recognized my father.
Michael had rented half a farmhouse. One half was for an apple orchard farmer. The other half was for us — just one big room. Between the two rooms, there was a baking oven. When Michael heard what happened, he brought one-hundred pounds of flour, thinking my father could bake bread for the family. When my father saw the flour, his face lit up. But instead of baking bread, he started making pretzels. Why pretzels? All you need is flour, water, and salt — and that is what we had. He took them to the local bars to sell. It was a novelty, and they started buying them. Before long, my father became the community’s baker. We baked mandel bread, challah, cakes, cookies — everything. Even matzah for Passover. This went on for about a year, and then Michael and Lola got married. This photo is of their wedding in the backyard. Out of everyone in the picture, only three survived — Michael, Lola, and me. My little brother Tuli, in the white suit, is standing and leaning against my mother, Shari. Out of all those people, just the three of us made it. No one else.
Michael and Lola moved out and into a duplex. The mayor of Niepołomice lived on one side; Michael and Lola lived on the other. One night, the mayor came home and said, “Michael and Lola, save yourselves. I heard there is going to be a raid tonight or tomorrow night.” Michael hired a wagon and a driver, and we snuck out in the middle of the night. The only place we could go was Bochnia, which had a ghetto. So we had to go inside the ghetto. Bochnia had a terrible reputation. Occasionally, dump trucks would come in, and Nazis would pull children from their beds and throw them into the trucks. Parents screamed for their children, and children screamed for their parents. As the trucks pulled away, parents chased after them. But at the back of each truck were machine guns, and they mowed the parents down. That story echoed across Europe. People were told: stay away from Bochnia ghetto. but we had no choice. It turned out to be a good thing that we left Niepołomice because that very night, trucks went house to house and took all the Jewish people. They brought them to the forest. The men were given shovels to dig a ditch, and everyone was shot.
How do we know this? Lola and I were the only survivors. We went back after the war to find out what happened. Farmers told us they were out picking mushrooms and berries when they saw the trucks roll in. They saw everything. They said the ground moved for three days afterward. The Nazis did not care if they killed you or buried you alive.
Meanwhile, when we arrived in the Bochnia ghetto, the truck unloaded us in the middle of the street. Michael saw his old school friend Farber, who was now a Jewish policeman inside the ghetto. These policemen didn’t have weapons — just a baton at their side. Farber saw Michael and Lola and said, “What are you doing here?” Michael told him about what had happened in Niepołomice. Farber said, “Don’t worry, I’ll find you a place to live.” He took Michael, Lola, and her parents to one place, and he took my father, my mother, my little brother, and me to a big room where eight people were already living. Now we were twelve. There were no beds, just straw on the ground with blankets. Blankets hung from the ceiling to separate each family.
Everyone in the ghetto had to work. If you didn’t work, you didn’t get food, and you’d starve. My job was in a uniform factory, sewing buttons onto uniforms. It was easy work, but we worked thirteen hours a day with very little food or sleep. This went on for over a year. Then one day, Farber came to Michael and Lola and said, “Save yourselves. I heard there is going to be a raid tonight.” By then, every house in the ghetto had some sort of hiding place. They called them “bunkers.” Tha is when I found out our bunker was actually a large piece of furniture. You would open the doors, push aside the clothing, slide the back panel, and there was a hole in the wall. All twelve of us would crawl through and stand inside the wall all night. The last person would close the panel and put the clothes back in place. We stood there all night, hearing dogs barking, people screaming, and gunshots. We heard our neighbors being torn apart by dogs.
Toward morning, it got quiet. When we finally came out, we could not believe what we were seeing — our neighbors’ bodies torn to pieces in the snow. A woman holding her baby, the baby ripped apart, and the mother still barely alive. People with pushcarts went around collecting the bodies and body parts, piling them up in the ghetto square. They poured gasoline on the pile and started what they called the “Bochnia Ghetto human bonfire.” Can you imagine what that was like? The screams — some of those people were still alive.
People were running and hiding wherever they could. I knew that Michael and Lola had hidden in a doghouse. Yes, a doghouse. When you lifted the floor, there was a ladder leading to a space that could fit seven people. When we got to the doghouse, this is what we found: everyone inside was dead — a bullet hole in each of their heads.
Michael and Lola later told us what happened. As they were about to hide in the doghouse, another Jewish policeman named Morris Schiller came up to them. He said, “I know about your doghouse. Unless you take my mother and sister with you, I will tell the authorities.” There was only room for seven people. Now there would be nine. So, Michael and Lola chose to walk away and let the other seven take the spot. As they were walking down the street, a friendly Jewish policeman saw them and said, “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you hiding?” Michael explained what had happened with Schiller. The man said, “Don’t worry. My sister and her two children are hiding somewhere with room for you. Follow me.” He took them to a leather tannery. Next to it was a water tank. He said, “My sister and her two kids are inside that tank. There is a step ladder in the back. Climb up and use the rope inside to lower yourself in. When you hear me knock in the morning, that means the coast is clear.”
Michael told me the story. As he climbed down, he saw the sister standing knee-deep in water. Her little daughter was waist-high in the freezing water. She held a baby boy in her arms, asleep. Michael picked up the little girl. Lola took the baby from the mother. They all stood there, shaking and shivering all night long. In the morning, they heard the knock. They came out, got some feeling back in their legs, and the first thing they did was go to the doghouse. When they saw what had happened, Lola started to scream. Michael stopped her, whispering, “They might still be burning bodies. They will hear you.”
They knew what had to be done. In Jewish tradition, you bury the dead within twelve to twenty-four hours if possible. Michael, being a religious man, found a rickety old wheelbarrow. He placed the bodies inside. Lola held on to them. Little Marika, still holding the doll Lola had made her, was clutching it tightly. They took the bodies to the cemetery. They found a shovel. Michael and Lola, with their bare hands, dug through the frozen ground and finally made a grave. Then Morris Schiller showed up. He said, “It wasn’t my fault.” It really wasn’t — his own mother and sister had also been killed. But then he said, “The grave you dug for your family — I want it for my mother and sister. You’ll have to take them out.” Lola cried. Michael said, “He has power over us.” So they had to pull the bodies out, put them back on the wheelbarrow, find another spot, and start all over again.
Just as they were finishing, a Jeep pulled up to the cemetery gate. Two husky Nazis jumped out, yelling, “Morris Schiller! Morris Schiller!” He walked up to them, saying, “Here I am. I’m here.” They pulled out their revolvers and shot him on the spot. That is what they did to people who saw too much. Morris Schiller must have seen a lot that night. A whole lot.
Yitzi: Can you tell us how you escaped the ghetto?
Ben: To tell you the whole story of how our family, along with fifty-five other people, escaped the ghetto would take another half hour. We were outside the ghetto. I am begging you — please read the book. When you read my book, you will see the full story. I just do not have enough time to tell it all now.
However, I will tell you this. Michael befriended a truck driver who was hauling coal. He asked the driver if he could convert his truck into a double-decker, with coal piled on top, and between the coal and the chassis, where Jewish people could hide. The plan was for the driver to take us to the border of Czechoslovakia and Poland. A smuggler would be waiting for us there, and we would pay him a lot of money. The driver agreed and turned his truck into a double-decker. Ten of us could hide between the coal and the chassis. The first ten to leave Bochnia were Michael and Lola, along with eight others. Why did Michael and Lola go first? Because you could not always trust these drivers. They would take your money upfront, then turn you over to the Gestapo or SS to collect a reward for catching Jews trying to escape. So they went first, and we agreed on a password. If the driver came back with the right password, we would know we could trust him. If not — don’t trust him.
Two days later, the driver came back with the correct password. That meant it was time for another group of ten to go. This time, it was my father, mother, sisters, my little brother, and me, along with four others. My parents were supposed to go next with another group of eight. I remember getting into the truck with my little brother. We were packed in like sardines, lying on our sides. I was facing my little brother — five of us on top, five on the bottom, by our feet. We got in, the truck closed up, and about an hour outside the city of Bochnia, we were stopped. Through the cracks, we could see soldiers with rifles. We figured someone had turned us in, and this was the end. We started saying our prayers. Then, suddenly, the truck started moving again. We felt a wave of relief — until we noticed a soldier standing on the driver’s step, holding a rifle. We could hear soldiers walking on top of the coal, and coal dust started filtering down through the cracks. My little brother was about to sneeze — I held his nose and mouth. The soldiers were with us for two hours. The truck then stopped again. We were praying when suddenly we heard, “Dankeschön, Dankeschön.” Talk about miracles — they had no idea there were ten Jews hiding under their feet.
The truck drove for another three hours. Then, in the forest, at night, he let us out. He told us to walk about three-hundred yards into the forest. We would see a tool shed, and the smuggler would be waiting inside.We walked to the tool shed and saw a forest ranger — it turned out he was the smuggler. He took us into the forest, laid us down on our stomachs, and told us to look up. We saw soldiers walking back and forth with dogs, right along a barbed wire fence. He told us that at 3:00 a.m., the soldiers would come down the hill and be replaced by fresh ones during a short ceremony. During that ten-minute window, we might have a chance to cross — if we were quiet. If we made a sound, it was over. At 3:00 a.m., we saw the soldiers walk down the hill. When they were far enough, we began shimmying on our stomachs and knees all the way to the barbed wire. The smuggler lifted the wire and told us to cross. He warned us that on the other side, there was a big drop — very steep — and if you fell, it could be the end. He told us to sit at the edge, hold hands, and slide down slowly. If you tumbled, that would be it.
So, that is what we did. We slid down the mountain until we hit a plateau. I asked my little brother, “Are you okay?” He said yes. Then, out of nowhere, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped out of my skin. Who could it be, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark? He said, “Binish?” Only my immediate family called me that. He said, “I am your uncle Belo, your mother’s brother. I came to take you across the border into Hungary.” I was so happy to see him. We embraced, and I asked, “How did you know where to find me?” He said when Michael and Lola passed through two days earlier, they contacted him and told him exactly where to meet us. Now, telling you how we crossed into Hungary would take too long, so I will skip that part. But we made it. We were in Budapest.
In Budapest, we reunited with Michael and Lola. We had a meal together. Then I had to do something I hated — I had to go into prison in Budapest with my little brother. My uncle took us there. They put us in, and he went upstairs to sign some papers. Then he came back down and they released us. He had to vouch for us because we were minors. Now we were legal in Budapest, in Hungary. The next morning, we boarded a train to Munkacs. That is where my grandfather, Joseph Sagel, lived, along with my uncles, aunts, cousins — and my sister Goldie was waiting for us there. We arrived in Munkacs in the morning and had a beautiful reunion with the whole family. My uncle invited me and my little brother to stay at his house. He was a wealthy man. He owned a yardage goods store — fabric for dresses and suits — and lived above the shop.
Life in Hungary went on like nothing had ever happened. People were going to proms, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and synagogues in the mornings. Oh, my God, if only I could tell them what was happening in Poland. Most of them did not believe me. My family did, though. I told my uncle, “If the Nazis ever come here, they will take everything. You should convert some of your assets into diamonds that we can hide.” He actually listened. One day, he came home with boxes full of shoes. He gave each of us a pair of beautiful black shoes and told us there were diamonds hidden in the heels. “Only use them in life-threatening situations,” he said.
We were waiting for our parents to come on the next trip. One month passed. Then two. Then three. Nothing. Finally, someone crossed the border who had known my parents. He told us that just as they were about to hide in the doghouse, a nearby farmer saw them and called the Gestapo. The SS came and pulled all ten people out — including the driver, who wasn’t Jewish. Eleven people in total. They lined them up against the wall and shot them all.
One month later, the Nazis came into Hungary like they were invited. They knew everything — where every Jewish person lived, their names, addresses, jobs, education. How? There were no computers then. IBM sold punch cards to whoever would pay, and the Nazis used them. IBM doesn’t deny it — they just say they didn’t know what it was for.
The Nazis told everyone, “You’re being relocated to Germany. Germany needs workers. Able-bodied men and women will work. Children will go to school. The elderly will be cared for. Bring any valuables you can carry. Leave everything else behind. If anyone is found hiding, they will be shot.” People believed it. What else could they believe? I came from Poland, and even I did not know about the killing camps. If my parents knew, they never told us kids.
We were told to get ready and march out. My uncle gave everyone their shoes with the diamonds inside. People carried their bundles and believed they were going to work. They lined us up — eighty people to a cattle car. Eighty people would not have been so bad if it weren’t for all the bundles and luggage. There was barely space to move. If someone wanted to sit, another had to stand. I was waiting to get in when two men came by with a stretcher. They set it down by my feet, and I looked at the woman on it. At first, I did not recognize her — she was covered in blood. Then I realized it was my sister, Goldie. I asked her, “Goldie, what happened?” She said she tried to escape. She made it as far as the train station. A Hungarian gendarme who had gone to school with her recognized her and turned her into the SS. They beat her to a pulp.
They ordered us to get in. We helped my sister into the cattle car. There were two buckets of water in the corner — no bathrooms. Eighty people and no toilets. Eventually, the buckets were used for waste. They overflowed. We couldn’t even sit on the floor anymore. One day passed. Then two. On the third night, we arrived at a place called Oświęcim — Auschwitz in Polish. The train passed under the infamous gate: Arbeit macht frei — “Work sets you free.” The train didn’t stay there long, maybe two hours, and then it started moving again. It went about three kilometers and stopped at a place called Birkenau. Birkenau was part of Auschwitz — the place where most of the killing happened. We didn’t know that.
They opened the doors and started screaming in all different languages. We saw people in striped clothes and soldiers. The people in stripes were yelling in Yiddish, Polish, Hungarian, Czech: “Leave all your belongings where they are!” “Don’t pick anything up!” “Women and children to the right!” “Men to the left!”. I was holding on to my sister Goldie and my little brother Tuli. We were eventually pulled apart, never to see each other again. My sister Goldie and my little brother Tuli went directly to the gas chambers. Who knew?
I was fifteen and a half years old. I could not have been called a child or a man — I was in between. I decided to go with my uncle and cousin instead of with my little brother and sister. That was another miracle; a big one. Had I gone with them, I wouldn’t be here to talk about it. They went straight to the gas chambers. Going with my uncle and cousin, we were lined up. It was a strange place. It was nighttime, and it looked like it was snowing — but it was ashes falling. We saw five chimneys with flames shooting out and ashes in the air, with a strange smell. Every step we took in the dirt and ash left a footprint, just like snow.
We kept walking and then I saw a doctor — Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death. He decided who lived and who died with a flick of his finger. He was pointing: right, left, right. We didn’t know what he was doing. He looked like a doctor — and he was. But we didn’t know what that meant. I came in front of him and saw he was asking a young man, “Kannst du 5 Kilometer laufen, oder willst du mit dem Lastwagen fahren?” — Can you run 5 kilometers, or would you rather go by truck? The young man said he had a bad knee and would rather take the truck. Poor soul, not realizing that meant certain death. They sent him to the right. We didn’t know. I was 15 and a half, and something told me — he is testing us to see if we are strong enough to walk. I could see the barracks right there. I told my uncle and cousin, “Whatever he asks, tell him you’re strong enough to walk, to run, that you’re healthy and can work.” I said, “Let me go first, because I speak German.” So I walked up to him first, straightened up, saluted, and said, “Achtzehn Jahre alt, gesund und arbeitsfähig.” I am eighteen years old, healthy, and able to work. He asked, “Kannst du 5 Kilometer laufen?” I said, “Jawohl.” He sent me to the left. My uncle and cousin went left too.
Then they marched us to a big auditorium. There were guards yelling, “Get undressed! Take off your shoes! Walk to the barbers — they’re going to cut your hair, then into the showers.” So I got undressed, but I had these beautiful black shoes with diamonds. I didn’t want to give them up. My uncle and cousin took theirs off. But I, Ben Lesser, walked to the line of barbers naked — except for my black shoes. They cut my hair all over, but no one said anything about the shoes. The guards walked back and forth, looking at us. It’s like God blinded their eyes. They never said a word. I went into the showers with my shoes on. After the shower, they gave me a pair of striped clothes and wooden shoes — wooden soles with canvas tops. I put my black shoes under my jacket, under my arm, and walked to the barrack.
At the barrack, the Stubenältester — the man in charge — came out. He spoke in broken German. I could tell he was a Polish inmate. He said, “You Hungarian Jews, you think you are on vacation? Think again. You see those flames coming out of the chimneys, those ashes? That’s your mothers, your fathers, your brothers, your sisters. If you don’t do exactly what you’re told, you’ll end up like that — ashes.” I couldn’t believe it. My little brother, my sister — ashes. They chased us into the barrack, and my uncle, cousin, and I took an upper bunk. We laid down and fell asleep. We were so tired.
About an hour later, my cousin woke me up, kicked me, and said, “Ben, get up!” I asked, “What is it?” He said, “Listen.” I heard something — chanting, crying, or laughing. I couldn’t make it out. Then he said, “Look.” One of the boards in the wall was missing, and we saw a flame shooting up. He asked, “What is it?” I said, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” I went to the Stubenältester and spoke to him in Polish. I asked, “Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me what’s going on here? What am I hearing and seeing?” He said, “You Hungarian Jews know nothing. Three months before Hungary was even occupied by the Germans, we in Auschwitz knew it was coming. They made us dig three fiery ditches for the influx of Hungarian Jews.”
He told me everything — even how long it takes to kill someone in the gas chamber. I didn’t want to know, but he told me: thirty minutes. But they didn’t wait the full time. After fifteen minutes, everyone was knocked out. They’d air it out for fifteen more, then the Sonderkommando would come in and remove the bodies. They cut the hair, pulled out the gold teeth, checked the bodies, put five on a gurney, and pushed them into the crematorium. However, that was too slow — so they started throwing half-dead bodies into trucks. Infants too. Babies they hadn’t sent to the gas chambers were thrown on top of those bodies. The trucks went to the fiery pits. They threw them in, because the crematorium couldn’t keep up. I didn’t believe him. That was my biggest mistake — because now I see that picture in front of my eyes, day and night. It won’t leave me. I asked, “Where is God? Where is God? How could God watch this happen? How could He allow this to happen — to His children? How?” I lost my faith that day. But I regained it later. When you ask me, I’ll tell you how.
For two weeks, what we went through in Auschwitz was unbelievable. Day and night we heard screams. Every morning, we had to stand naked for roll call while they counted us. If you were too skinny to work, they sent you to the gas chambers. Every day, we didn’t know if we’d survive. After two weeks, they loaded us into trucks and took us to a labor camp called Dürnhau. It was a rock quarry. They dynamited the mountain, and we had to break the boulders into pieces with sledgehammers, toss them into mining carts, run them down the hill, then push them back up. It was backbreaking work. I knew my uncle would not survive, so I bribed the kitchen chef with my diamonds to give him a job in the kitchen. He took the diamonds and gave my uncle the job. It got easier — he could eat there, and he shared his rations with his son and me.
Every evening, after work, we had to line up in the yard in rows of five — including the kitchen help. They counted us, dismissed us, and then we got our rations and went to the barracks. One night, they counted us over and over again. The commandant came down with his girlfriend and said, “I am going to teach these pigs a lesson they’ll never forget.” Three inmates had escaped. Because of that, he ordered every tenth person to receive twenty-five lashes. They counted. I could see my uncle was going to be number ten. I pushed him behind me and took his place. I became number ten.
They brought us to the middle of the yard. There were bundles of hardwood stakes, about two and a half feet long, and a sawhorse. They made us tiptoe and bend over the sawhorse — stomachs couldn’t touch the wood, heels couldn’t touch the ground. One man held your trousers tight, the other beat you. You had to count out loud. Miscount? Start over. Heel touches ground? Start over. Stomach touches wood? Start over. Almost impossible. I was number four. Number one miscounted, touched the ground, then fell. Every lash left blood through his trousers. The commandant kicked him in the face, told him to get up — but he could not do so.The commandant then pulled out his revolver and shot him in the temple. His girlfriend gave him a hug and kiss like he was a hero. Number two went up — same thing. He fell. Shot. Dead.
Number three was younger. He miscounted, touched the ground, and begged, “Please have mercy, don’t kill me.” The commandant told him to stand and face him. The boy took two steps, collapsed. Shot. Dead.
Then, it was my turn. What can I tell you? I walked up to that sawhorse and psyched myself up. I said, “Ben, if you want to live another five minutes, you better do exactly what they say. No excuses.” I tiptoed up, stomach off the wood, heels in the air. I said to myself, “This is it.” They started hitting. One man pulled my trousers tight, the other hit me. Eins. Zwei. Drei. Vier… With every hit, my skin tore. My flesh was bleeding. Twenty… twenty-one… twenty-two… twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five. I made it. No one in the camp thought anyone could survive it. You could hear a pin drop. The man holding my trousers whispered in Yiddish, “Go thank the commandant.” So I stood, blood running down my legs, saluted, and said, “Danke schön, Herr Kommandant.” He grabbed my shirt collar, turned me toward the others, and said, “Now I told you it could be done. If you do it like this Junge, you have nothing to worry about.”
Right then, there was a commotion at the gate. They caught the three who had escaped. You couldn’t even recognize them. Black-and-blue faces, bloody. As soon as the commandant saw them, like a kid tossing away a toy he got bored of, he told all of us number tens to go back to our lines. He then ordered his men to bring the portable gallows. We had to watch as each one of those escapees was hanged. We had to keep our eyes open — if you closed them, they whipped you. I remember the third one. As they put the noose around his neck, he yelled, “Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai…” They kicked the stool from under him before he could finish: “Adonai Echad.” They wouldn’t even let him say “The Lord is One.” Then, they dismissed us like nothing happened. We went for rations. For weeks, I couldn’t lie on my back — I had to sleep on my stomach.
One night, we heard cannon fire. The front was closing in. The next morning, instead of going to work, a loudspeaker said, “No one is working today. The camp is being evacuated. Line up in rows of five and march out.” My cousin was with me, but my uncle was in the kitchen — we couldn’t say goodbye. We never saw him again. That was the death march. If you couldn’t keep up with the soldiers, they shot you. All day long, we heard gunshots. In my book, I say we marched three or four weeks. Time didn’t matter. We were like zombies.
A German professor contacted my daughter. He read my book, loved it, and asked permission to translate it into German. We gave it. It was published in Germany. He said, “Your father made two mistakes.” What were they? He said I marched three or four weeks — but actually, I marched seven weeks. He knew everything. Said I marched 456 kilometers from Dürnhau to Buchenwald. I remember the last week. Our shoes fell apart. We were marching barefoot in the snow. If you slowed down, they shot you. Don’t ask me how — we marched seven weeks. One whole week barefoot. I then arrived in Buchenwald. There, they counted us and told us to go into the barracks. They said we would get food, fresh clothes, and fresh shoes. We were told to go into the showers. By the way, this is my picture — inside the showers. They fed us. We slept in a bunk — not a bed. In the morning, we got dressed, they counted us, and they marched us out — because Buchenwald was also being evacuated.
Outside the camp, we saw a line of trains, cattle cars. They lined us up, eighty per car, and ordered us in. I pushed my cousin in first and told him, “Find a spot against the wall.” I remembered what it was like going to Auschwitz, people packed all around me — it was terrible. He found a spot by the wall and saved it for me once I got in. Then they closed the gate. An hour later, they opened it and threw in eighty loaves of bread. Picture that — one loaf per person. But, the people near the door grabbed three, four, even five loaves. I was all the way against the wall — we got nothing. I didn’t know where we were going, or for how long. I had to get a loaf. So I started climbing over the sitting inmates to get to the door, to try and wrestle a loaf away from someone who had too many. One inmate had a pocket knife. I guess he stabbed me. I felt blood filling my mouth — but I couldn’t stop. I needed that bread. I kept going. I grabbed a loaf from a man who had several, stuffed it in my back pocket, and made my way back to my cousin. My cousin looked at me and said, “Ben, what’s happening? You’re bleeding.” I put my finger in my mouth — it had gone right through my tongue. What in the world happened? Talk about miracles. I tore off a piece of my trousers and wrapped it around the wound like a bandage. It was filthy, dirty — but I didn’t catch an infection. That alone was a miracle. I had that one loaf of bread, and I rationed it with my cousin. We each got a piece about the size of half an egg, every night at midnight. It lasted us two weeks. After that, no more bread.
The train kept shuttling back and forth for another week. Three weeks total. Everyone around me was either dead or dying. We arrived at a place called Buchenwald — oh, I’m sorry, I meant Dachau. From Buchenwald, we were taken to Dachau. We arrived at Dachau. They opened the gate and yelled, “Anyone who can walk, get out of the cattle car and cross the tracks into the yard.” Out of the 80 people in our cattle car, only four of us walked out. Just four — my cousin, myself, and two others. The rest were all dead. They marched us into Dachau, and we saw a mountain of bodies — just dead bodies piled up. Apparently, they had run out of coal to burn the bodies in the crematorium, so they just stacked them as high as they could. They put us in a barrack right next to that pile of bodies. They pushed us against the wall, and we lay on the ground. The inmates felt sorry for us. They gave us a little water to drink.
One day, two days passed… and suddenly we hear, “Befreiung! Liberation! Americans! Americans! Befreiung!” I said to my cousin, “Let’s go see what’s happening.” We shuffled out and saw inmates crawling on their hands and knees, kissing the boots of the American GIs. They looked like gods to us. They liberated us. Two GIs walked up to my cousin and me, and they opened a can of Spam. It smelled so good. We made a mistake — we ate some of it. That night, both my cousin and I came down with dysentery. He died in my arms that night. I kept talking to him, I wouldn’t let go. They saw what happened and came to take him. I followed them, asking, “Where are you taking him?” But, my feet gave out and I collapsed. The minute I fell, they pushed me up against a wall. I stayed there for two hours.
Then, a nicely dressed man walked up to me and spoke in broken German. He asked how many languages I spoke. I told him. He said, “Polish? I’m a Polish Jesuit priest. I came here with monks and doctors. We’re opening a field hospital in the yard of Dachau. I’m going to take you there.” He picked me up like a sack of bones. I must have weighed forty or fifty pounds — sixteen and a half years old. He carried me to the infirmary. A nun placed me on a cot with a white sheet. He took my vitals, and I passed out. Five weeks later, I woke up — in a monastery. In Bavaria. The monks had given up a building for survivors. The place was called St. Ottilien. That’s where I was reborn. Five weeks later, I opened my eyes.
If we had our own country, the Holocaust would never have happened.
Yitzi: Your story is so powerful. I could ask a hundred questions. Can you share a little about how you rebuilt your life after the Holocaust? Did you end up in the United States? Did you move to Israel? Did you get married?
Ben: Yes. First of all, I want to tell you — I regained my belief in God. I have come to understand… God was weeping. He gave us free will. Because of that, he couldn’t interfere, even when humans choose to kill. He couldn’t interfere because of free will. So, yes, I’m a believer now. Yes, I got married. I was married for seventy-two years — to a beautiful, beautiful wife. I came to the United States in 1947. I married in 1950. A beautiful life. I have two wonderful daughters. Four wonderful grandchildren. And I think… eight great-grandchildren. And I know how — my family is expanding. It all started with me.
Yitzi: Unbelievable. Did you tell your children about your experiences in the Holocaust, or did you wait a long time before you could talk about it?
Ben: I lived in Los Angeles, and for many, many years — maybe forty or fifty — I could not talk about it. When my grandchildren were in school — my grandson, in fifth grade, called me one day. He said, “Papa, my teacher found out you are a Holocaust survivor. Would you come and tell us your story?” From that moment on, I started to speak — and have not stopped. I then founded the Zachor Holocaust Remembrance Foundation. We speak all over the world. In fact, I am very active in Germany. Germany gave me the highest civilian award they have. That was given to me by the Chancellor of German for the Zachor Foundation; for reminding the world what happened. This is so unusual. I even made a book — thirty-two double pages, so sixty-four pages — in German. We are giving it out to every high school kid in Bavaria. Now we are trying to give it to every high school student in Germany. It is very important. It tells my story — just the Holocaust part. It tells the students what I want them to grow into: Be kind. Stop the hatred. Hitler and the Nazis didn’t start with killing. It started with hate. Hate propaganda. That’s how it began, and look what hate did. It turned ordinary people into monsters. So the hatred has to stop. I tell them this in German: Be good students. Love your parents. Respect your parents and your grandparents. Stop the hatred. There is no room for hatred. I believe they are listening.
It is so important that every child hears this, because I don’t know what they’re being taught. Some schools teach about the Holocaust, some just skim over it, and some don’t teach it at all. But this way, they get a booklet — free of charge — that tells them what happened to me during the Holocaust and how important it is to stop hatred. Be good students. Love their families. Be loving children.
Yitzi, don’t you think that’s important? I’m supporting it. Actually, I have six people working full-time for me. We do much more than just have me speaking around the world. It’s about remembering and never again.
Specifically, the Zachor Holocaust curriculum — it is the first online Holocaust curriculum taught by a survivor — and it is free for students, teachers, and history enthusiasts. There are other online curriculums, but they are all over the place. This one is a streamlined version. It is being used and recognized by all the major institutions — Yad Vashem, USC Shoah — they all know the curriculum.
Yitzi: Ben, I wish you continued strength and success to share this message. Thank you so much for honoring me by sharing your story.
To learn more about Ben and his accomplishments, visit: Non-Profit Holocaust Survivors Foundation | Zachor Foundation
To obtain a copy of Ben’s book, go to: Inspiration of Living Life Matters Paperback | Zachor Foundation
To attend Ben’s upcoming fundraising event in California, see here: ZACHOR “Choose Love Not Hate”
To make a donation to the Foundation: One Time Donation — Zachor Holocaust Remembrance Foundation
Ben Lesser on Surviving Auschwitz, Founding the ZACHOR Foundation and Why Education Is the Only… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.