Ben Lesser's Early Life and the Holocaust

Ben Lesser's Early Life

• Ben Lesser was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1928.
• He spent summers in Moonot, now Hungary.
• His father owned a chocolate factory and a wine and fruit syrup factory.
• The chocolate factory produced animal-shaped chocolate wafer cookies similar to KitKats.
• Lesser's mother, Shaindel, was a well-educated and elegant woman.
• He recalls waiting for his father to return from the factory and bring sweets.

The Holocaust

• The Holocaust was a state-sponsored genocide that resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews and others persecuted by Nazi Germany.
• Anti-Semitism predates the Holocaust, with instances recorded as far back as the ancient world.
• In the 19th Century, racial biases against Jewish people endured even as legal restrictions were lifted during the Enlightenment period.
• During Hitler's reign, many Germans accepted the regime's premise of isolating German Jews.
• Most Germans were unaware of the full extent of the "Final Solution".
• The Nazis used intimidation to enforce social and cultural norms.
• According to Lesser, the Nazis began their anti-Semitic campaign gradually, starting with burning Jewish books and synagogues.
• Many people worldwide remained silent despite knowing what the Germans were doing which enabled the atrocities to continue.

Nazi Germany

• In Nazi Germany, many Germans contemplated questions of race, authority, and loyalty after the war.
• A prevalent discontent with the existing social order and the leadership of the Nazis are cited as reasons for complicity in the Nazi regime.
• Hitler and the Nazis began their anti-semitic campaign slowly.
• They first began by burning Jewish books, then synagogues.
• Eventually, they started to burn people and there was still silence.
• Jews suffered not only the atrocities of the Holocaust but the silence of people worldwide who knew what the Germans were doing and said nothing.
• Many Germans did not agree with beliefs that Jews were a source of racial pollution but participated in their persecution.
• Members of social groups excluded Jews.
• Teenagers in schools and universities harassed Jewish classmates.
• Germans became complicit in the social persecution of the Jews as they acquired Jewish owned businesses.

Lesser's Experiences During the Holocaust

• At 13, Lesser hid in a ghetto during a raid and witnessed violence.
• When the Nazis invaded Poland, they ransacked Lesser's home.
• Lesser witnessed a Nazi soldier murder a baby.
• Curfews were set for Jews, and resources became strained.
• Lesser's family left the city to avoid the Krakow ghetto.
• The family moved to nomit, where his father made pretzels to earn money.
• In 1943, the family learned of an upcoming Nazi pogrom and arranged transportation out of the city to Bnia.
• The family moved into a single room with eight strangers in the Bia ghetto.
• Ben and his brother Tuli moved into a single room with eight strangers.
• Occupants of the building hid behind an armoire and went undiscovered during a raid.
• The family used Hungarian citizenship cards to move into an apartment outside the ghetto.
• Lola and her husband arranged a plan for the family to escape to Hungary by bribing a coal truck driver.
• Lesser hid under a coal truck with his brother Tuli to escape.
• They learned of their parents and older brother's deaths, who had been captured after someone called Gestapo.
• In 1944, at 15, Ben and two of his siblings were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
• Ben's aunt, sister Goldie, and brother Tuli were sent to gas chambers and killed.
• He lied about his age to Dr. Josef Mengele to be selected for work.
• Lesser's hair was cut and he was sprayed with DDT, given striped clothes and wooden clogs.
• He was assigned the number 1212

Concentration Camp Atrocities

• Murders in concentration camps were primarily carried out through mass shootings and poison gas.
• Others died from starvation, abuse, exhaustion, and medical experiments.
• The food included bread made of sawdust, fake coffee, and soup made with bits of garbage.
• Possessions and homes of murdered Jews were redistributed to non-jews and German occupiers.
• Lesser survived in forced labor conditions.
• Conditions were terrible and starvation was widespread.
• He recalls murderous dogs, whips, screams, mountains of skeletal corpses, vermin, and freezing cold roll calls.
• Nazis made Jewish prisoners dump tons of human ashes and incinerate bodies.
• Escapees from the durow labor camp were caught and hung.
• The remaining prisoners were punished with brutal lashes.
• Lesser switched placed with his uncle to receive the lashes.
• He was beaten with 25 brutal lashes at the labor camp.

Death Marches and Liberation

• Lesser and his cousin Isaac were sent on a 250-mile death march to Buchenwald.
• Prisoners who couldn't keep up were shot.
• They had no warm clothes or shoes and were rarely fed.
• Some Nazi guards passed the time with target practice.
• Lesser was sent on a death train from Binval to Doow.
• He was one of 18 people who survived; originally 3,000 were on the train.
• Ben was stabbed in the chin while trying to get bread, leading to a severe wound.
• The prisoners were given no more food for the rest of the trip.
• Ben and Isaac survived by rationing the bread they had.
• On April 26, 1945, Isaac and Ben arrived at the Doow Concentration Camp.
• Ben was finally freed when Americans liberated the camp, only 3 days after arriving.
• Only Ben and his older sister Lola survived the Holocaust out of his family of seven.
• He collapsed into a priest's arm at a medical tent and was given an IV with nutrients.
• He was told to remember and be proud of his religion.
• He realized then that every religious and ethnic group has righteous people.
• After liberation, Lesser weighed about 65 lbs.

Post-War Life

• Ben suffered a coma which lasted over 2 months and was nursed back to health at a monastery.
• He woke up from a coma at a monastery in Bavaria, Germany, next to Moshe Opatovsky.
• He stayed with his sister in Germany and later migrated with her to the United States.
• He and his sister migrated to the US at the age of 18.
• Lesser lived briefly in Brooklyn, New York, and attended night school to learn English.
• He settled in Los Angeles, California, building a real estate career.
• Since retiring in 1995, Ben has been devoted to ensuring that all people remember the Holocaust.
• Lesser lives with his wife Jean in Las Vegas.
• He wrote a book about his experiences called "Living a Life That Matters: From Nazi Nightmare to American Dream".
• He was awarded the Order of Merit Cross from the Federal Republic of Germany.

Learn about Ben Lesser's early life in Poland and the events leading up to the Holocaust. Explore the history of anti-Semitism and the rise of Nazi Germany. Understand the context and consequences of the state-sponsored genocide.