Leo Luster grew up in Vienna speaking German and Yiddish. He and his parents were deported to Terezin in 1942. While his mother remained there, Leo and his father were sent on to Auschwitz, then a series of work camps. One morning Leo saw that the German guards had fled. He stepped outside to see a Soviet soldier pointing a rifle at him. Leo blurted out, in Yiddish, “I’m a Jew!” The soldier lowered his rifle and replied in Yiddish, “So am I.”

The actor Steve Furst read’s Leo’s story for us. Leo was interviewed in Tel Aviv and Vienna by Tanja Eckstein in 2010.