Young Boy Somehow Survived 4 Different Nazi Concentration Camps

**Sanitized Transcript:**

Ben Lesser was born in 1928 in Krakow, Poland, before the Second World War. As a child, he spent summers with his mother’s family in Munkács, which is now in Hungary. His father, Lazar Lesser, had a successful chocolate factory and a wine and fruit syrup factory. Lesser’s father made animal-shaped chocolate wafer cookies, similar to KitKats. Ben recalls that his mother, Shisegal Lesser, was a sweet and lovely woman, highly educated and always well-dressed. He remembers waiting with his siblings for his father to come home from the factory to search his pockets for sweets.

Lesser lived during a time that felt relatively safe and secure, at least until the Nazi tanks rolled into his hometown. What followed was a horrifying, life-altering series of events known as the Holocaust, which the young boy named Ben Lesser somehow survived. When thinking of the Holocaust, one might recall famous stories of survivors and victims, such as “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which chronicles the tale of a 13-year-old girl who was forced into hiding and ultimately died in a concentration camp, or “Night,” a Nobel Prize-winning book about Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.1 million people were systematically murdered over five years.

Today, we will explore a similarly inspiring story of one boy’s experience surviving four concentration camps during the Holocaust that you might not have heard before. The story before us today is that of Ben Lesser, who is currently 95 years old as of 2024. Lesser survived Auschwitz, a death march, and the notorious death train from Buchenwald concentration camp to Dachau concentration camp. How did a young boy endure so much and live to tell the tale? We will explore this and more in our retelling of his story.

First, let’s back up a little. The Holocaust was a state-sponsored genocide that led to the deaths of millions of Jews and others who opposed Nazi Germany. But how did we get there? What led to such a violent and devastating state campaign? Adolf Hitler’s rule over Nazi Germany came after a long history of anti-Semitism that predated the 1930s and 1940s. The term “anti-Semitism” dates back to the 1870s, but reports of anti-Jewish sentiments exist as far back as the ancient world.

Lesser was just 13 years old when he had to hide between two buildings in a ghetto during a raid. He heard the sounds of machine guns, horrified screams, and dogs tearing people apart. He lived to tell the tale, but his parents did not survive the mission to escape to Budapest. How did Lesser come to be in this situation, and why did people go along with the Holocaust?

During Hitler’s reign, many Germans contemplated questions of race, authority, and loyalty. While many Germans had a vague idea of the goals of the Holocaust, the majority did not endorse the mass murder of the Jews. Very few understood the full extent of the Nazis’ final solution. The lack of understanding is at least part of why many people did not challenge the oppressive Nazi regime. Intimidation was also used to enforce Nazi social and cultural norms. If Germans entered Jewish stores or were friendly toward Jewish people, they would be harassed by the Nazis.

Lesser recalls that Hitler and the Nazis began their anti-Semitic campaign slowly. They first started burning Jewish books, and no one batted an eye. Then they began burning down synagogues, and the world remained silent. Eventually, they began to burn people, and still, there was no outcry. Jews suffered not only the atrocities of the Holocaust but also the silence of people worldwide who knew what the Germans were doing and said nothing. If more world leaders and people had objected strongly at the time of the Holocaust, it is likely that many of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis may have survived.

Ben remembers when the Nazis reached his hometown in Poland. One day in September, he felt his home shake, and when he ran to his window, he saw tanks and soldiers on the streets. While many Germans did not agree with the extreme Nazi belief that Jews were a source of racial pollution, a lot of people participated in varying degrees of Jewish persecution. Members of sports teams, book groups, and other social groups excluded Jews. Teenagers in schools and universities began harassing Jewish classmates. Germans became more involved in the social persecution of Jews as they acquired Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and belongings at bargain prices.

Looking back, the acceptance of the Holocaust within Nazi Germany is horrific, but the courage needed to stand up to such an oppressive regime is immense. Now that we have a sense of the context of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, let’s address the questions we’ve all been wondering about: how did a young boy survive four of the most horrific concentration camps during the Holocaust?

Ben Lesser’s journey began when the Nazis invaded Poland when he was just 10 years old. He recalls that the Nazis came in and assaulted his family while they were still in bed, ransacking their home. He and his sister heard a scream from the apartment across the hall and ran toward the yelling, only to find a Nazi swinging their neighbor’s baby upside down by its leg, telling its mother to make it stop crying. The parents were screaming, and the Nazi smirked as he slammed the baby’s head into the door frame, killing it instantly. This horrifying experience exemplified the Nazis’ ruthlessness and disregard for human life.

In Lesser’s community, curfews were set for Jews, and resources became very strained. If anyone disobeyed the curfews, the Nazis would shoot them. Most Jews in Poland living near Lesser were displaced to the Krakow ghetto. Young Ben and his family opted to leave the city after the Nazis ordered Jews to move into the ghetto, where 15,000 Jews were packed into an area previously inhabited by just 3,000 people. A man who intended to marry Ben’s older sister, Lola, offered the Lesser family a chance to leave town. They avoided what would have been certain death in the Krakow ghetto.

On the way out of Krakow, a group of Nazis ordered Ben’s family to surrender their Jewish books, which were considered foundational to Judaism. Ben’s father had hidden all their money in one of the books that the Nazis took, so the family arrived in Munkács with no money. They lived in a small, poorly built house with a large stone baking oven. Ben’s father made money by selling pretzels in the community.

Ben stayed in Munkács for two years, during which time his siblings married and moved out. In 1943, the family learned of an impending Nazi raid that would lead to mass executions. His parents arranged for transportation in a coal truck out of the city to the closest town, Biały Dunajec. Again, they arranged an escape in an apartment in the Biały ghetto, a city notorious for anti-Jewish brutality, especially against children. The same night that the Lessers left Munkács, all those in the Jewish residences discovered by the Nazis were murdered.

Once again, Ben narrowly avoided death. In Biały, he and his brother Tuli moved into a single room with eight strangers. There was no privacy, and every day, Ben and the other men did manual labor in exchange for barely edible rations from the Nazis. One day, the Lessers were told to hide because another raid was nearby. They squeezed into a secret space behind a large armoire and went undiscovered all night long while Nazi soldiers checked the buildings.

The next morning, they saw corpses and body parts throughout the streets. Instead of mourning, they were forced to pile the bodies before the Nazis set them on fire. Eventually, the Lessers moved into an apartment outside the Biały ghetto with Hungarian citizenship cards that Lola obtained for the family. Lola’s husband arranged a plan for the family to escape to Hungary by bribing a coal truck driver to smuggle them out in small groups.

Ben knew he might never see his sister again when he hugged his parents goodbye. On his way out of Krakow, Lesser hid under the chassis of a coal truck with his 7-year-old brother Tuli and eight other people. They managed to escape, but after months of waiting, they learned that their parents and older brother had died. It turned out to be the first of many times that Lesser narrowly escaped death.

In 1944, the Nazis invaded Hungary. At age 15, Ben and two of his siblings were shoved into a cattle car and sent to Auschwitz, perhaps the most infamous German concentration camp. For three days, Ben and others were subjected to inhumane conditions, including overcrowding, lack of food and water, and unsanitary facilities. When they left the car, Ben, his uncle, and cousin were sent to work, while his aunt, sister, and brother were sent to be killed. Ben only realized what happened to his siblings when a guard gleefully explained that the ash falling from the sky was made up of the bodies of those deemed unfit for work.

Despite his encounter with Dr. Josef Mengele, known for his horrific experiments, Lesser defied the odds and survived. He was given a number, 1212, and endured terrible conditions, including starvation and abuse. Many Jews tried to escape but were unable to survive due to a lack of resources and the risk of denunciation.

Lesser was one of the few lucky ones to survive the concentration camps. He was subjected to forced labor and witnessed unimaginable horrors. He recalls seeing piles of corpses and the brutal treatment of prisoners. One day, he was beaten with lashes as punishment for an escape attempt. Despite the pain, he felt a determination to live.

Ben and his cousin Isaac were later sent on a death march to Buchenwald, where they faced extreme conditions. They were eventually transported on a death train to Dachau, where only 18 out of 3,000 survived. Ben endured a brutal journey, sustaining injuries but managing to survive.

On April 26, 1945, Ben and Isaac arrived at Dachau, where they were liberated by American forces. Ben was considered a displaced person without a family or home to return to. He remembers the joy of liberation and the kindness of those who helped him recover.

After the war, Ben and his sister Lola migrated to the United States, where he built a successful life and career. He has dedicated himself to ensuring that people remember the Holocaust and has written a book about his experiences titled “Living a Life That Matters: From Nazi Nightmare to the American Dream.” Ben Lesser is a true embodiment of resilience and determination, and his story serves as an inspiring reminder of the human spirit’s capacity to endure.