WATCH: Holocaust Survivor Returns To Auschwitz And Remembers
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Seven decades after he was freed from Auschwitz, Rabbi Nissen Mangel returned this week to give a speech on the grounds where once sat crematoria that gassed more than a million Jews.
Mangel recounts in the powerful video his experiences as a 10-year-old child being deported to Auschwitz with his family and going through the selection process in which camp authorities who would immediately die and who would be used as slave labor.
“It was a miracle from God in heaven. Thank God, he is gone and I am speaking to you,” the Hasidic rabbi said, referring to the infamous Dr. Joseph Mengele, who oversaw “selections” and also conducted inhumane medical experiments on camp inmates. He was speaking to a crowd of fellow ultra-Orthodox men, and he delivered his remarks in Yiddish.
Rabbi Mangel’s grandson Liebel Mangel shared the video on Facebook, and it has since garnered thousands of likes and shares. “No words to describe the emotion felt yesterday, as I witnessed my grandfather relive his experiences at the entrance of the death camp – Auschwitz-Birkenau. The same place he stood 73 years ago as a small child,” he wrote.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
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