By Mary Kate Krueger
It has been nearly 80 years since the Nazi concentration camps were liberated, and Ben Lesser stands firm in telling his story and pursuing his purpose of remembering the fallen victims of the Holocaust.
Lesser survived four different concentration camps, two death marches, and the excruciating pain of the Holocaust as a Jewish man. Today, the 95-year-old stands strong, devoting his days and nights to opposing antisemitism.
Lesser was born in 1928 to a Jewish family of seven and grew up in Poland around the time of the Nazi invasion. He was then transmitted into countless cases of abuse made by Nazi Germany. Lesser and his sister Lola were the only two survivors of the Holocaust in the immediate family.
In 1939, the Nazis invaded Krakow, Poland, when Lesser was just 10 1/2 years old. In 1944, Lesser and his entire family were forced to leave.
Lesser and his family then lived in the ghettos in Poland, where he lived through horrifying events such as dogs mauling humans and innocent civilians being killed. His father created a business with just flour and water, and he would sell homemade pretzels to bars to make an income during this time.
When his house was raided for the first time by Nazi occupation, Lesser witnessed the horrifying act of the Nazis murdering an infant while his neighbor’s house was being invaded. This was just the first of the horrendous events he witnessed during the Nazi invasion, with many more to come.
Lesser recounts one of the most harrowing events he witnessed in the camp, describing in chilling detail how the Nazis forced five young men to stand in a line and endure whipping while counting aloud. Anyone who lost track or made a mistake in counting was shot on the spot. Lesser watched as four young men were killed before his eyes. Remarkably, he survived the ordeal and called it a miracle.
In 1945, Lesser and his cousin Isaac were taken on a death march to Buchenwald. Of the 3,000 inmates that boarded the train, only 18 survived, including Lesser and his cousin Isaac. His cousin later died in his arms following the liberation. Lesser himself went into a coma for four months, waking up in a hospital in Germany where he was reborn. He was liberated in Dachau.
When he was 18, Lesser went to America. Retiring in 1995, and in 2009, he founded the ZACHOR Holocaust Remembrance Foundation. The purpose of the Zachor Foundation is to encourage young people to carry on the legacy of Holocaust survivors long after they have passed.
The ZACHOR foundation is the first curriculum taught by a survivor to incorporate lesson plans, historiographical photos, and student timelines. The program includes a section titled “I-SHOUT-OUT,” which has a goal of garnering six million shout-outs to represent the six million souls that were silenced during the Holocaust.
According to a Time article, negative attitudes about Jews have been on the rise. Antisemitism and anti-Zionism have been on the increase in the past decades.
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Photos courtesy of Robyn Kramer-Weber, Ben Lesser’s granddaughter, who helped him through the Zoom.
Thumbnail Image Caption: A portrait of Ben Lesser with a book he wrote and published titled Living a Life that Matters: from Nazi Nightmare to American Dream, where he recounts the harrowing details of his experience in the Holocaust.