January 26, 2016 will be the day many students of the Class of 2018 remember the once in a lifetime chance they had to meet a real life Holocaust survivor and hear his powerful story of escape.

The Holocaust was a dark chapter in human history that showed the true evil that all human beings have within them. Many prisoners, whether they be Jewish or POW, had to suffer beatings, hard labor and worse; however, some were able to escape. One of them being 86-year old Laguna Woods resident, Sam Silberberg.

Silberberg was raised in Poland until September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. After the first attack, the Jewish business industry was all but destroyed. When the Germans marched into his town, he could hear the Germans firing there guns and were soon evacuated to a historical town a few miles away. Sadly, the German army was able to catch up to them and they used his father as a hostage. His family was able to bribe the guard and release him. Only just being in there a week changed him.

Once the occupation was in full effect, the Nazi top brass wanted to find a faster way to kill the “Jewish problem,” this resulting in suffocating them with carbon monoxide. They let their chemical scientists come up with a form of poison called Cyclone B12. While all this was happening, Silberberg was working in the black market as a smuggler, trading manufactured items for food. Soon after, he and his cousin were captured. The Nazis lied to the kids saying that “they were going to a summer camp where all there dreams would come true,” but he knew the truth. They were heading to Auschwitz and the execution camps.

Both Silberberg and his cousin escaped the Nazis days before he and his family were forced into ghettos, and then after a few more months were forced to leave their new “home” to the labor camps, which he snuck into to be with his father. The camp he and his father were transported to became a camp responsible for making barracks for the other prisoners. After the barracks were completed they were moved to a new camp where he got his number, 178509. They were shackled everyday to and from the factory they worked at. During a bombing run on the camp, he was able to escape but returned for fear the Nazis would kill his father for his escape.

Then in 1945 with the Russian army pushing deeper into the German fatherland, the Nazis issued the Death March. During the March, Silberberg and his father planned to escape multiple times but they all failed. When they were taking a break, a French column of prisoners passed by, so he snuck out and traveled until he came upon the town where his mother had found sanctuary in a monastery. He was soon reunited with his mother and they fled to another monastery where they stayed for the rest of the war.

So many human beings died in horrendous ways by Nazi hands because of the belief of them being a master race, when in truth, those who endured and survived those hardships deserve to be known. They are the ones who have risen above and beyond humanity as a whole. The men and women who lived through the Holocaust will forever be remembered as symbols of how humanity can prosper when all hope seems lost.

Thank you, Mr. Silberberg, for making the journey to come share your experience with us. We will not soon forget.