I was born in Ludvipol, Poland—a small community in which all my extended family had lived their entire lives. I had a younger sister, Chanah and much younger brother, Ephraim. It was a nice community with four seasons. The winters were especially brutal. I recall snowshoeing to school in the winter. I had many friends in my school when I was younger. As anti-semitism spread throughout Europe, beginning with Poland, even schoolmates and neighbors became hostile towards Jews. It became increasingly clear to me that the aggression was going to spread to Ludvipol. I told my parents that we needed to leave our home to avoid the increasing antagonism. Reluctantly, my parents allowed me to take my sister and leave. But, I can still remember my mother throwing herself over my younger brother and wailing, “I am not going to let you take Ephraim and kill all my children.” My sister, Chanah, and I left without really knowing what was ahead of us. Who could possibly imagine the horrors? That was the last time my sister and I saw our parents and brother. Chanah and I traveled and hid in the forest together. I knew I had to protect my young and beautiful sister from awful people, horrible men who might try to take advantage of her and frightening situations. Given her age and that she was an attractive teenager at the time, she must have been especially scared. Nonetheless, she was very brave and smart. We would eat only what we could find on the side of the road or at a farm we might pass. We were lucky if we ate a raw potato once in a while. In the unlikely event we were able to eat meat, it was always chicken. That was a real treat. But to this day, I do not like chicken because it reminds me of how tough things were. Towards the end of the war, my sister met her Polish husband in a displaced persons camp. They fell in love, married and moved to the United States after the war. They had two children. I was relieved that she survived and found happiness. During the Holocaust, I worked with a Zionist group in southern Poland and the Carpathian mountains. We worked as part of the underground army to take Jews out of dangerous parts of Europe and through illegal borders. We tried to move them through Austria and into Italy. This Zionist group helped to transport about 100,000 Jews. During this time. I was jailed by the Italian and English police six times. Running from the English police in 1947, Ileft Naples, Italy to come to my aunt in the United States . I traveled to in the SS Marine Shark —a military ship that had been converted to a passenger ship. Steven enter the United States through Ellis Island on August 1, 1947. My mother’s sister greeted me in New York and took me to live with her family in Boston. I moved to Detroit when I was 25 years old to another aunt’s home in Detroit. My aunt was in the millinery business. Even though I barely spoke English, I worked with her briefly and then began my own scrap iron and metal business. I was lucky enough to meet Helen Bormeinski at a Jewish Community Center dance. She thought I was very handsome. We got married May 30, 1949 and had four wonderful children. I am very proud of them. In my later years, I had a heart attack and was in a coma for a month. I was expected to die or remain a vegetable. However, after surviving a very serious cardiac arrest, while in my coma, I had end-of-life visions. I saw the image of my mother in front of me with a light glowing behind her. When I told her I was coming to be with her, she told me to share our Holocaust story. Once I left the hospital, I committed to being an active public speaker at Detroit area schools and for the Holocaust Center. When I spoke, I described my experiences during the Holocaust and the underground. I was brought back to life after my heart attack to serve another mission. Years after I moved to the United States , I learned my entire family and many in my community were killed by the Nazis. My parents and brother were among those murdered by by bullets. The SS made them march out of our town into the forest and forced them to dig a I large mass grave. They were then systematically shot and thrown into the grave they had dug that could accommodate thousands of people. This process enabled the Nazis to conceal the remains of their of victims and destroy the evidence.  

Despite any pain or loss you suffer, you must come out of the experience thriving—not just surviving. You have to become stronger from unimaginable pain and loss. You cannot use the excuse of loss to stop you from moving forward. You need to remain an honorable and kind person. Despite the terrible prejudice Jews experienced, at the hands of Nazis, politicians, people we thought were our friends and neighbors we must put prejudice aside. We must be eager to man without prejudice, he was a man who stood up with You must have a voice, and let that voice be heard to make a positive, loving difference in our world. We cannot give up on others or on ourselves. We must be fearless and believ; e in our own strength as well as the support of others to make a difference in our world. I love living in a democracy and in the United States. I tell my children each day, “You should get up each morning and kiss the ground you live on.