Holocaust survivor Ben Stern discusses his life before, during and after World War II. The son of Heim Hillel and Hadassah Stern, he was born in Kielce, Poland, the youngest of four children. His father had a variety of jobs, trying to support his family. Anti-Semitism, promoted by the Catholic Church, was widespread, but because he lived in a mostly Jewish community, he avoided many conflicts. The family was living in Lodz after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Once the oppression of Jews began, they moved back to Kielce; in this small town in southwest Poland, life for Jews was better. Stern worked here in a variety of jobs until his family was deported in 1942; he continued to work until he was taken to Auschwitz. Because he could speak German, he was made an assistant to a German prisoner, and he got slightly larger rations, allowing him to survive. He details specific acts of cruelty, saying that "the Germans" broke him and other prisoners physically, spiritually, and mentally, until survival became the only instinct. He tries to explain why prisoners did not fight back and relates what he heard of the deaths of his family members; only his oldest sister and he survived. In 1944, as the Allies were approaching, he was marched to several other concentration camps including Oranienburg, Sachsenhausen, Calvering, Dachau, and Allach. He was liberated in April of 1945; he describes how many freed prisoners suddenly died after eating food, it being too much of a strain on their systems. He eventually left Germany for Poland to search for his family and then returned to Germany as a DP (displaced person). He married Jadzia Szklarz (later changed to Szklar) in Munich in 1946; with a young daughter, they immigrated to the United States. Stern's uncle, Gabriel Stern, had left Poland much earlier and had moved from New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, and then Columbia, S.C. An aunt, Helen Lipton, eventually lived in Beaufort, S.C. Gabriel Bern helped sponsor Ben Stern and his family. In Columbia, he went through a number of jobs quickly, trying to make more money to support his family. Through a chance encounter, Stern landed a very good position in a shop, building door and window frames. He and his wife raised four very successful children. It was not until the broadcast of the television film, "Holocaust," that Ben and Yajah Stern began to speak of their experiences in the war. He subsequently became a dedicated speaker on the subject.
