Naftali Fürst will never forget his first view of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The location was German-occupied Poland. The date was November 3, 1944. Fürst was 12 years old.
He arrived crammed in a cattle car with his mother, father, brother, and more than 80 others. Nazi SS soldiers threw open the doors.
Officers yelled in German, “Get out, get out!” People had to jump onto a ramp. Guards separated young Naftali and his brother from their mother. After prisoner numbers were tattooed on their arms, they also were taken from their father.
Fürst is now 92. He is one of a dwindling number of Jewish survivors able to share accounts of what they endured during Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Jews known as the Holocaust.
Before and during World War II, the Nazis, who controlled the German government, killed some six million European Jews. About 1.1 million died at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Nazis sinned greatly against God and His image-bearers in these tragic events.
January 27 marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazis’ most notorious death camp. In 2005, the United Nations also designated the date as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Fürst returned to Auschwitz for this year’s memorial ceremony. It is his fourth trip back.
Just 220,000 Holocaust survivors are still living. More than 20% are over the age of 90.
Fürst is originally from Bratislava, which is now the capital of Slovakia. He spent ages nine to 12 in four different concentration camps. Before they were separated, his father instructed the family members to meet at 11 Šulekova Street in Bratislava after the war.
In January 1945, the Soviet army closed in on Auschwitz with booming tanks. Nazi guards forced Fürst, his brother, and other prisoners to march. They walked toward Buchenwald, Germany, for three days in the cold and snow. Anyone who lagged behind was killed.
Fürst says he and his brother had to push themselves to take each step and to prove their desire to live.
“We had this command from my father: ‘You must adapt and survive, and even if you’re suffering, you must come back,’” Fürst recalls.
Fürst was separated from his brother at the next camp. U.S. forces liberated him at Buchenwald in April 1945.
Within months, the four family members reunited at the address they had memorized. It was the home of family friends. Other family members, including grandparents, aunts, and uncles, had been killed.
Fürst’s surviving family later moved to Israel. There he married, had a daughter, four grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Another is on the way.
Fürst tells his story as many times as he can. He takes part in documentaries and movies. He feels a responsibility to be a mouthpiece for the millions who lost their lives. He says people can relate to the story of a single person more than the hard numbers of six million deaths.
“Whenever I finish, I tell the youth: The fact that you were able to see living testimony (from a Holocaust survivor) puts a requirement on you more than someone who did not. You take it on your shoulders the obligation to continue to tell this.”
By the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God. — Hosea 12:6
To learn more about the Holocaust, read about the life of pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Faithful Spy by John Hendrix. Also see The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.
