Thread by @ABMFusa

August 9, 1928 | Samuel Beller, a Polish Jew, was born in Oświęcim.

In April 1944, he was deported to #Auschwitz. His entire family was murdered. Samuel survived.

Today is his 94th birthday. Please join us in celebrating Sam today!

Samuel Beller was born in Oświęcim, Poland. He recalls the anxious feeling the Jews of his town felt weeks before the invasion of Poland by the Nazis: the fiery, red-painted sky, an indication that something terrible was on the horizon. He was right.

On September 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded. The town he grew up in would be the home of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

Sam's father was taken away to a labor camp but returned a few months later, after his mother exchanged a sum of money to a low-income family to take her husband's place in the camp.

The Nazis confined the Jews of the town in a ghetto where food was scarce. Sam was sent to work in a factory that made German uniforms. He was also forced to clean German homes, where he received food that he took back to his family.

One day, Sam was sent to retrieve a tool from a Jewish man who owned a lumber yard. The man refused to provide the tool and instructed Sam to say that he was not home. Little did Sam know that he was being watched from the window.

Upon returning, he was beaten, and orders were given for Sam to be sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. But by sheer luck, the transfer to Auschwitz that he was supposed to be on had already departed. Instead, Sam was sent to a different labor camp.

Sam spent time in numerous concentration camps: #Sachsenhausen; #Sacrow; #Blechhammer, the second-largest subcamp of Auschwitz, where he got his number; #Dachau; #Buchenwald; and #GrossRosen.

Sam recalls that the hunger was so great during his time in the camps that it was the only thing that occupied his mind. He could not think of his family or his home.

At the end of the war, the Allies were closing in. Sam and the other prisoners were put on a cattle train. The train would travel to numerous locations without disembarking.

Then, on April 29, 1945, the train suddenly stopped. When the doors opened, two American soldiers were standing in front of them, informing them they were free. Sam was taken to the hospital in very critical condition. He spent three months there.

Sam had lost his faith during the war. After his release from the hospital, Sam was housed with a group of Hungarian boys. While he was eating a non-Kosher sandwich, the boys surrounded him and snatched the sandwich away. It made him question, "where did I come from?"

The boys took Sam to a rabbi who constantly watched over him and brought back Sam's faith during the war.

Sam immigrated to the US, where he had an aunt and uncle, in July of 1945. He moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to study in Yeshivah. Sam did not want to speak about his experiences. It was only after his children started asking questions that he began to tell his story.

Later on in life, while Sam was praying, a young man noticed his number and told Sam of its meaning. The number tattooed on his arm, 184805, represents "God is One" in Gematria, the Jewish form of numerology. Sam still resides in Brooklyn.

Samuel was one of the Survivors who came with our Foundation's delegation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 2020 to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the camp's liberation.

Please join us in wishing him a wonderful day!