Bernard Klein

"Do not let it happen again!!"

Date of birth

09/07/1929

Where were you born?

Humenne, Czechoslovakia.

Where did you grow up?

Humenne, Czechoslovakia.

Name of father, occupation

Ervin, Businessman

Maiden name of mother, occupation

Helen Sommer, Homemaker

Immediate family (names, birth order)

Parents, Emery, me, and Judith.

How many in entire extended family?

60.

Who survived the Holocaust?

My father, Emery and myself.

My father managed land, important to the Nazis. He was able to avoid being rounded up. In 1944 however, the family was sent to Nitra, Slovakia with others, and we were put on a cattle train to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

We had a lucky break, when we arrived at Birkenau, a couple of Jewish guys from our town told us to say that we had a trade and that we were older than we were. My brother Emery was 16 and said that he was 18, I was 14 ½ and said that I was 17. We said we were mechanics. Later they put us in a factory repairing freight cars that were damaged in the war.

My mother and 11 year old sister Judith were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

After the war, we walked, we hitchhiked back home. We were ardent Zionists and in 1949, my father, brother, and I went to Israel. It was difficult to make a go of it then in Israel. My father had a sister in the United States. We had agreed that if it did not work out, we would join her. We could not get in at first because of the quota. We moved to Montreal, then later to Detroit.

Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)

Auschwitz Birkenau / Bismarckhötte Gleiwitz / Blechhammer

Occupation after the war

Businessman

Spouse

Agnes Klein, Homemaker

Children

Ronald, business executive and co-chair of the 2010 Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit's annual campaign; Susan, homemaker and community volunteer.

Grandchildren

Five.

What do you think helped you to survive?

Being together with my father and brother.