HIGH POINT, N.C., Jan. 22, 2015 – Hank Brodt, a Holocaust survivor who lived through the horror depicted in the movie “Schindler’s List,” will share his story with the High Point University community at 7 p.m. on Jan. 28 in the Hayworth Fine Arts Center. The event is open to the public; no tickets are required.
Brodt, 90, who now lives in High Point, is a native of Boryslaw, Poland. As a teenager from 1943 to 1945, Brodt survived five Nazi prison camps and a forced labor camp. Toward the end of World War II, he was forced along with other camp survivors on a death march for three days and nights without food or water. He was liberated on May 6, 1945, by the troops of the U.S. 80th Infantry Division.
After the war, Brodt testified during the trials of accused Nazi war criminals in 1946 in Dachau, Germany, and again in 1967 in Bremerhaven, Germany. In 1949, he immigrated to the United States with the help of a soldier who had befriended him and sent him the necessary paperwork. In 1950, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed, ironically, in Germany, where he married his first wife in 1952. She died in 1978 and he remained single for more than two decades before marrying his current wife, Aida, in 2000. Brodt recently returned from his ninth “March of the Living” experience with pilgrimage visits to Auschwitz and Israel.
Zoe Garber, a sophomore psychology major from Hollis, New Hampshire, organized the event to ensure that the stories of the Holocaust, the brutal death of almost 6 million people, continue to be told.
“I feel a responsibility as a young Jewish person to provide people with opportunities to learn what happened, listen to stories and gain a passion for protecting people against this violence and hatred,” Garber says. “The survivors of the Holocaust are getting older, and there won’t be an opportunity much longer to hear their stories. We are all responsible for preventing this from happening again in the future, and I’m hoping people will see this as their first step in preserving Mr. Brodt’s stories as they pass them on to future generations.”