At just 10 years old, Ben Lesser’s life changed forever. In September 1939, tanks rolled through the streets of Krakow, Poland, shaking his family’s apartment.
“My father called us into the dining room and said, ‘from this moment on, there [are] no more kids. You're all adults,’” Lesser told The Daily Cardinal. “We grew up overnight.”
What followed would go on to inform his life and his mission.
After being forced to leave Krakow, Lesser fled to then-Czechoslovakia and later to Hungary, where he reunited with family in the city of Munkacs. During a Nazi raid in 1944, he and his remaining family were forcibly deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in cattle cars, with more than 80 people jammed into each car. Lesser spent the next two and a half weeks laboring there, he told the Cardinal.
“Every morning we had to stand in line…to be counted, naked, and they would count us and look at us, and if we were too skinny to work, they pulled [us] out and they sent [us] to the gas chambers,” Lesser said. “Every morning, you didn't know if you were going to survive.”
Lesser, now 96, described himself as being surrounded by death, witnessing burning bodies, smoky human ashes drifting above the camp and murders taking place in front of his eyes. He was transported to Durnhau, where he labored in a rock quarry for half a year, narrowly avoiding death many times.
In February 1945, Lesser and other laborers were evacuated from the camp, sent on a seven-week Death March to Buchenwald and then a three-week Death Train to the Dachau concentration camp. Lesser witnessed many more deaths on his journey, once again confined to a filthy cattle car with no food and overflowing sewage.
“How I didn’t get an infection was a miracle,” he said of his journey.
After arriving in Dachau, Lesser and his cousin were liberated on April 29, 1945. However, that night, Lesser’s cousin died in his arms, he told the Cardinal. The only surviving member of his immediate family was his older sister, Lola. At the end of his journey, Lesser was 16 years old and weighed just 60 pounds.
Lesser made the journey to the United States in 1947, arriving in New York and attending night school to complete his education, Lesser’s granddaughter Robyn Weber said. He worked many jobs to sustain himself until he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for the United Parcel Service for 25 years, eventually establishing a successful career as a realtor.
Turning memories into a mission
For 50 years, Lesser kept his story private. He first spoke publicly about his Holocaust experience in 1995 after his grandson asked him to speak to his middle school class, according to Weber.
Since his first public story, he has spoken all over Europe and the U.S., distributing materials to classrooms around the globe. In 2023, he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany — the highest civilian honor given by the country — for his work in preserving the memory of the Holocaust.
Combating hate has always been the main message in Lesser’s story, he said.
“Hitler and the Nazis did not start with killing, they all started with hate. Hate was able to convert ordinary citizens to murderers,” Lesser said. Weber also emphasized the importance of education to the foundation’s central mission.
“It is so important to be educated, to have Holocaust education, to have any type of genocide education, because that starts the teaching of what hatred can do,” she said. “One thing schools need to do, as well as parents combined, is really talk about…the root of bigotry and stereotyping and racism. When you teach it at a young age, people are able to form their own opinions without following others.”
Eventually, Lesser transformed his story into more than just a speech. He founded the Zachor Foundation in 2009, dedicating his life to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and sharing his experience to educate youth all over the world.
Lesser designed the foundation to educate around his own experience, providing a dynamic education for students. It has a variety of resources available for teachers including their own Holocaust remembrance curriculum and an interactive AI where students can speak directly with Lesser, a tool used by museums and schools alike.
In relation to a recent rise in antisemitism, Lesser believes the way this rhetoric spreads on the internet and social media to impressionable youth can be countered through remembrance of his experience. This surge prompted Lesser to spread his message to even a wider audience.
“I had to push back [against] the hatred and love,” he said. “Why hate? Love and hate are both contagious, so choose love.”
Interested readers can learn more about Lesser’s story by purchasing his book “Living A Life That Matters: from Nazi Nightmare to American Dream.” Purchasing directly from the Zachor Foundation website will put all the proceeds toward funding the organization and spreading its message, Lesser said.
