30-01-2025
‘I have to survive': San Diego Holocaust survivor tells story on anniversary of Auschwitz liberation
SAN DIEGO (KUSI) — Monday marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps, by Soviet Union troops.
The international community has come to use the anniversary as a day to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other people persecuted and killed during Nazi rule, known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Mourners from around the world spent the day paying tribute to the lives lost in the genocide and listening to the stories of people who survived.
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Among those who lived through the Holocaust was Ben Midler, who joined KUSI on Monday to share his story. Originally hailing from Poland, the now-96-year-old was just 12 years old when the Nazis first invaded the country.
Three years later, Midler, who is Jewish, ended up in the first of six concentration camps he had been imprisoned in until being freed by Soviet soldiers. He was 17 when he was finally liberated.
One of the six camps he was in held at was Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was placed in one of the labor camps.
'I always thought I got to survive,' Midler said. 'I didn't think of would I survive. I said to myself, 'I have to survive.''
Once he was liberated, Midler returned to Poland to search for his family — none had survived, save for a couple relatives who had moved out of the country prior to the war. He then moved to Israel, where he lived for a decade before emigrating to the U.S.
Watch the full KUSI interview with Midler in the player above.
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