Today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

In recognition of this, please listen to this re-release of an interview I did with Holocaust survivor, Gene Klein.

In the spring of 1944, a teenage Gene Klein and his family were taken from their village in Hungary and thrown into the infamous Nazi extermination camp known as Auschwitz.

His father was taken straight to the gas chamber. Klein was forced into slave labor until liberated in the spring of 1945, and he spent two years as a refugee before his and other family members were allowed to immigrate to the United States.

“Eventually, I decided that, like [Elie ] Wiesel, I needed to be public about being a survivor and that, in my own small way, I should contribute to the mission of educating the world about the Holocaust,” he wrote.

“I will tell our story,” he continued, “and I will speak — especially in these times — about the tolerance and compassion necessary to prevent what happened to us from happening to others.”

 

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