He was deported by cattle car—eighty people to a wagon, two buckets for eighty souls. The journey to Auschwitz was suffocating; by the time the doors opened, a quarter of those inside were dead or dying.

On arrival, soldiers separated the deportees. David’s mother and his two little sisters were driven toward open pits. Gunfire followed. He was 13 years old.

In the camp, David was assigned to hard labor on the train cars—cleaning wheels and axles, hauling heavy grease canisters as transports kept arriving “filled with more and more people every day.” His older brother, Jacobo, stayed close to him at first, helping him survive—lifting him onto the ramp to be sent to work, sharing what little strength he had left. When the camp water was poisoned, Jacobo was among those who died.

Near the end of the war, David was moved deeper into Germany. The train carrying him was bombed by the American Air Force. He leapt from the burning transport, hid for eight days in a forest, and was rescued by a Czech soldier who carried him to a field hospital.

When the war ended, he was fifteen, weighed eighty-three pounds, and was the only survivor among one hundred and five family members. He spent the following years in an orphanage in Prague before beginning to rebuild his life.

Ever since, David has devoted himself to sharing his story—so that future generations understand both the history and the warning it carries.