Holocaust survivor shares story at Hanscom's Holocaust memorial event

  • Published
  • By Meredith March
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  Sixty-five years ago, Allied troops advanced through Europe, forcing Nazi forces to retreat and abandon the conquered nations where they had implemented Adolf Hitler's plan to eliminate Europe's Jewish population of nearly 9 million and others they considered inferior.

On Jan. 27, 1945, Soviet Red Army troops entered Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was located in Poland and the largest of the Nazi death camps, and liberated more than 9,000 prisoners. Among those prisoners was 24-year-old Morris Salzberg.

Mr. Salzberg, now 90 years old, spoke about his Holocaust experiences in a question-and-answer format during a Holocaust memorial event held at the Base Theater April 20. The event was the capstone of the Hanscom community's Days of Remembrance observances, held April 11 through 18.

At the beginning of World War II, Mr. Salzberg lived in Lodz, Poland, with his parents, four brothers and two sisters. Persecuted because they were Jewish, most members of the Salzberg family were murdered during the Holocaust. Mr. Salzberg - who was sent to work in a number of camps before he arrived at Auschwitz -- and his brother Lewis, who was also sent to a concentration camp, were the only survivors.

When he arrived at Auschwitz, Mr. Salzberg was given his striped uniform and wooden shoes. His arm was then permanently tattooed with a prison number. "I still have the number on my arm, 142261," he said. "They never called me by my name, just this number."

Throughout the year he spent in the death camp, Mr. Salzberg worked night shifts in a factory loading coal into a massive boiler, providing steam for approximately 40,000 laborers. During that time, he was given very little food and water.

"I was once 19 days without food and without water," he said. When he was finally liberated, Mr. Salzberg weighed less than 60 pounds.

After the war ended, Mr. Salzberg and his brother Lewis immigrated to the United States and settled in Massachusetts.

When asked what he wanted people to know about his experience, Mr. Salzberg said he wanted people to remember. "I would never have believed that this could have happened, but what I'm telling you is true. It happened. I was there."