2) For years, Michael wished he could wash away the serial number—B-1148—that was seared into his left forearm when he was just 4 years old. He’d mention Auschwitz, if asked about the tattoo, but he wouldn’t dwell on the Nazi death camp where his father and brother were murdered.

3) His recollection of those dark days is dim—“a blessing and curse.” He recalls the stench of bodies burning, the smoke from crematoria chimney, the clack of guards’ boots.

But so many memories—the texture of his brother’s hair, his father’s voice—are inaccessible to him.

4) That is, until he saw something that left him stunned and more determined than ever to tell his story-a picture of himself as a boy at Auschwitz on a website claiming the Holocaust never happened.

“I slammed my computer shut… I was horrified. My hands shook with anger.”

5) Bornstein was born on May 2, 1940, in the Nazi-occupied town of Żarki, Poland, the second son of Sophie Jonisch Bornstein and Israel Bornstein, baby brother to 4-year-old Samuel.

They lived in a redbrick house on Sosnawa Street.

6) When German forces occupied Żarki in 1939, Nazi soldiers confiscated Jews’ money & jewelry.

Israel Bornstein safeguarded his family’s valuables. He gathered what he could in a sack—a string of pearls, banknotes, the family’s silver kiddush cup—and buried it in the backyard.

7) Żarki was an open ghetto at the time, which meant that it wasn’t surrounded by fences, but Jews couldn’t come and go as they pleased.

The Nazis took over Jewish businesses, enforced a strict curfew, and made Jews wear white armbands with a blue Star of David on them.

8) Żarki was to be made Judenrein, “clean of Jews.” The Bornsteins and 120 others were allowed to stay behind as part of a cleanup crew, but eventually were sent away to a labor camp in Pionki.

And in 1944, when that camp closed, they were packed onto trains bound for Auschwitz.

9) While Michael’s mother was able to protect him at Auschwitz, she was helpless to save her husband Israel and her other son Samuel. They were sent to the gas chambers, and she later stated that her “heart literally felt like it had been gouged from her chest with an ax.”

10) In 1945, with Soviet forces closing in on Auschwitz, the Nazis started to evacuate the camp, forcing an estimated thousands of prisoners on a death march. Many prisoners, already frail from malnutrition, died from exposure in the harsh winter.

But Michael was left behind.

11) On January 27, Soviet troops arrived at Auschwitz. Some of the liberation was even captured on film.

“Of the hundreds of thousands of children who had been delivered by train to Auschwitz, only 52 under the age of eight survived.”

12) These children were the world’s best hiders,” Michael says.

“I was one of them.”

13) Soon after liberation, Michael returned to Żarki, where he found the family home on Sosnawa Street had been seized by a Polish family who now saw it as their home.

But of the few dozen Jews who returned to Żarki, he found something amazing- his mother who had also survived.

14) His mother Sophie realized that there was little opportunity left for them in Poland. But first she tried to recover the valuables her husband buried.

“She went digging with her bare hands to find these things, jewels & money… the only thing she found was the kiddush cup.”

15) “And so this cup has been in our family ever since. It’s been at my wedding, at our kids’ weddings, at their bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, and so on,” Michael says.

“It’s not worth much if you buy it for the silver, but we cherish it quite a bit.”

16) After the war, Michael’s mother determined they would apply for visas to the United States.

“She said the word ‘America’ the way a child says the word ‘candy,’” Michael says. “She told me America was the most wonderful and welcoming place you can imagine.”

17) And years later, after his bar mitzvah at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, Michael’s mother gave him a gift that she’d been saving for years to buy him: a gold watch.

“You have to wind it a few times a day to make it work, but it’s great,” he says.

18) And on the back, it has a gimel and a zayin, which are the Hebrew letters for gam zeh ya’avor, ‘This too shall pass.’”

19)Bornstein’s mother also instilled in him a deep appreciation for the value of education. Like faith, she’d tell him, education can’t be taken away.

In 1958, he enrolled at Fordham’s College of Pharmacy, just as she embarked on a new chapter in her life.

20) In describing Michael’s new educational book, his daughter says, “for my dad, a big piece of this was making sure that his grandkids understood the atrocities of the Holocaust… because this next generation, most of them will grow up not having met a Holocaust survivor.”

21) And of that Holocaust denial site, Michael now says.

“I’m almost grateful for the sighting. It made me realize that if we survivors remain silent—if we don’t gather the resolve to share our stories—then the only voices left to hear will be those of the liars and bigots.”

22) Always remember Michael’s lesson, “This too shall pass.”

But right now, we have a moral obligation to combat height wherever it is found. And like the courageous Michael Bornstein says, we have a solemn obligation to educate future generations…

Never again.

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@McKayMSmith