The Eric Metaxas Show - Irving Roth (Encore)

Episode Date: January 19, 2021

Holocaust survivor Irving Roth, featured in the new film, "Never Forget," has a harrowing story to tell about his childhood shattered by the Nazi takeover of his country and his days in a concentration camp. (Encore Presentation)

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the Aircomit Taxes Show. Oh, my goodness. We're living through strange times. Albin and I are going to try to process that with you. We're going to air this program today and tomorrow. So today's Tuesday. Tomorrow morning, of course, people are getting prepared for the inauguration of someone that millions of Americans don't think actually won the election, which is problematic. Is it fair to say that that's problematic? Is it fair to say that we can see. say that it's problematic and that you'll be demonized for suggesting that it's problematic. This is where we are in America because my parents have seen communism up front. They raised me. I write about this in my upcoming book, Fish Out of Water. That's coming up in two weeks or less.

Actually, it's coming out. In Fish Out of Water, a Search for the Meaning of Life, I talk about being raised by parents in the shadow of World War II, all of their memories of growing up of both my mother and father lost their fathers when they were 10 years old. My dad did. My mom did. They grew up during the war. They saw communism up close. They saw the evil of communism up close.

So they raised me differently than most Americans were raised. And I noticed this growing up. When we moved to Danbury, Connecticut when I was nine, I noticed that all these American kids that I went to public school with, because before that I was in a parochial school, Greek Orthodox school. or all the Greek kids, there was a similar sense of the evil, whether it was the Ottoman Turks, oppressing the Greeks for 400 years, or whether it was the communist, the civil war with the communists right after World War II.

They all had a sense of the evil of communism and that there's evil in the world and that we had to be vigilant about America and liberty. And when I moved to Danbury, Connecticut, which I write about in Fish Out of Water, I noticed that the kids that had American parents, they didn't have a sense of this. And I kind of think that's kind of where we are, why we are where we are now, because many Americans just don't realize how bad it can get. They've never experienced it. Now, if you grew up

in Cuba or your parents grew up in Cuba or you came from the Soviet Union, you know how evil communism is. And so it's one of the reasons that I've gone out on a limb. Some people think perhaps recklessly. But I think when you're facing the possibility of Marxism, whether it's cultural Marxism, cancel culture, that's of course how it starts. You have to be vigilant. This is really, really, it's not worth hanging back.

This is very, very dark stuff. So it's one of the reasons that I've been so outspoken because I've lived this through my parents. I know what is possible. I know that things don't always turn out well. In fact, I'll say you what, in my book on Bonhoeffer, it helped me to see this. Because my family in Germany grew up during a time of something unfortunately similar to what we're going through, where the culture began to shift. People didn't know what was going on.

Most people kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to get in trouble. Some people freaked out. some people left the country. Other people stood up bravely as the Dietrich Bonhofer and others at tremendous cost to their lives, but because they saw what was coming and they couldn't be quiet. And actually in the next segment, for the rest of this hour and the beginning of hour two today, we're talking to someone who's a Holocaust survivor. Irving Roth, we had him on this program some months ago.

he is one of the main figures in a film, documentary film called Never Again. And that's what, of course, the Jews have said since the Holocaust, never again. We must remind the world what took place in our lifetimes. So Irving Roth is going to be on for the next 40 minutes after this. Then Albin and I will come back and continue this conversation

about what's going on in the country right now. So I just want to make that clear. And can I just say, by the way, never again can be seen at SalemNow.com. So you can actually see this film that he's talking about. And he's part of, a huge part of it, Irving Roth. Actually, what am I thinking? Of course, folks, we've got to do this here. Since everybody's being canceled and we're losing sponsors and stuff,

SalemNow.com, please go to salemnow.com, please. There are a number of films there. use the code Eric, you will get 20% off. But if you want to fill your mind with something that's not, you know, the nasty news, which is just, it's hard to know what to take in, hard to know what to believe. Obviously, places like Fox News, except for some of the heroes on Fox, they've gone south. They're just parroting the party line. And by party line, I don't only mean the Chinese. Communist Party line. I also mean the Republican Party line is put forward by anti-heroes like

Mitch McConnell. So if you want something, and I actually think this is important. It's been important to me in the last weeks to take your mind off of what is happening. And I've actually said this about this show for the seven years we've been on the air, that we're obliged not to keep our eyes focused always on the news, on the news, what's happening, what's happening. It's important to know what's happening, but it's also important to take a breather. You know, in the Bible, they talk about a Sabbath. This is similar to that. You've got to stop and focus on something different.

Take yourself to another time. Learn the lessons of history. My wife and I've watched a lot of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, a lot of BBC miniseries, whether it's Dickens or Austin or Trollope, or there's all kinds of stuff. The Crown is actually spectacular. Just to take your mind to another time. and to get some context about where we are right now. Can I just jump in real quick?

Anne and I are re-watching Foils War on the BBC. That's a BBC production. And it's interesting how that some of that relates to what's about to happen. Foils War, he's a policeman during the time of the war. It starts in 1940 and it actually has some historical accuracies in there. And it plays into all the things that were going on during their time where the Nazis, were on their way to England and what people were doing to keep up morale and to help each other get through the time of the bombings in England. So it's really amazing.

I've not heard of that one. Where's that airing? Well, we're watching it on Acorn right now, Acorn TV. You know about Acorn. There's all this stuff out there. It's so crazy. Anyway, well, the crown is amazing. I have to tell you.

It is. I've been stunned at how good it is. And, you know, we ought to be thrilled that there's something being produced lavously that is not only historically accurate, but so well done that I can tell people to watch it. It's amazing. I want to ask a couple of things. Now, we're going to, again, we're going to have Irving Roth for the rest of this hour talking about the Holocaust, and we do want people to go to SalemNow.com. Use the code, Eric. But that documentary never again in a number of things, no safe space.

which is Adam Carolla and our dear friend Dennis Prager and others. There's a lot of great stuff available at SalemNow.com. If you can go there, use the code Eric to get 20% off. But we'll be talking to Irving Roth in a couple of minutes and for the rest of the hour. But after that, an hour or two, we're going to be talking, Albin and I more about what is happening right now. I've got a lot to say. Some of you know that my interview yesterday with Mike Lindell was pulled off of

YouTube. It's a free country, and yet Facebook, which controls YouTube, determined that our conversation about a stolen election, about political foreign interference in our political election, was unworthy of broadcasting on YouTube. Now, think of some of the trash, the pornography, the insanity that's available on YouTube. That's fine. But my conversation with Michael You don't have to agree with what we said. Maybe he got stuff wrong. Maybe I got stuff wrong. But the point is our conversation was taken down by YouTube because somebody at YouTube just decided

that in a free culture, you can't allow Eric Mataxis and Mike Lindell to have this conversation, even though we're doing our best. I'm not saying we're getting everything right, but we're actually doing our best. No, they took it down. Anyway, we've got a lot more to share. So do not go away. We're going to air this today and tomorrow, which is, Wednesday, obviously. Maybe you're watching. By the way, I think they took it down because they don't

like pillows. They're anti-pillow. They're pillow haters. We'll be right back with Irving Roth. Hey there, folks. This is the Eric Mattaxas show. On this program, I get to talk to interesting people, usually. Today is one of those days. I am really thrilled to have as my guest, Irving Roth, who is in a film called Never Again. Irving, welcome the program. Thank you. Happy to be here. Listen, I don't know where to begin with you.

You, sir, are not just a Holocaust survivor, which is a big enough deal, but you're old enough to remember vividly what it was to be there. You were 15 years old when you went on this evil journey into that. place. And you are featured in this film never again. My friend Dennis Prager is also featured in the film. But we want to hear your story, Irving. Tell us your story. Where did you grow up and how did you find your way into one of the darkest places of the 20th century? I was born in a country called Czechoslovakia, which doesn't exist. It's now made up of three countries, actually. The area I grew up in. I grew up in.

It's actually called now Slovakia. It was part of Czechoslovakia, which is fundamentally a democratic state when I was born in 1929. But unfortunately, by the time 1939 came along, it no longer existed. Because what happened is Germany first occupied Sudetland, which is the western part. And where I lived in 1939, became an independent country, an independent fascist country. And as a result of that, they followed the same

ideas as Nazi Germany, which meant immediately at age 10 here, I'm living in this city, which is about 6,500 people, one third of the population is Jewish, more than half is Catholic, and then assorted Russian Orthodox and gypsies and all that, living and working together, in a perfectly integrated society. I start school at age six, first grade. I'm perfectly happy in the school. I like going to school because we have a soccer. team and I play on it. There's some beautiful girls in my class. Everything is working fine. That's 1935. By 1939, all these changes. And suddenly I'm being persecuted. And I don't know that because one morning in 1939, around late spring, early summer, I do what I normally do during the

summertime. I don't go to school. I meet my friends in the park. But that morning, I can no longer going to the park because I'm a Jew. Because there's a huge sign. It says Jews and dogs are forbidden to enter. And suddenly it says what? Jews and what? Jews and dogs are forbidden to enter. Now this is an amazing thing.

Just to be clear on the history. So you're 91 years old now, correct? Yes. Okay. So you're 10 years old and you see the sign. Did you have any sense of what was going on, that something is going on before you saw the sign? Or was the sign the first time you had an inkling that things are changing? Well, I knew something is going on because going back a few months around November of 1938.

I get up on morning and I look at my father's face and it's totally ashen. they just finished listening to the radio and something was happening in Germany which is right next door Germany has taken part of Czechoslovakia already the question is are they going to take the rest of it and not be going to suffer the same thing will our synagogues be burned

will my father and other people being taken to concentration camp now you're talking about Kristallnacht Kristallnacht exactly so your father heard about this on the radio and you could see it in his face Yes. And so it really began then. So I knew things were not doing well. And of course, when in the spring of 1939, Slovakia becomes this new fascist country with a fascist government and a Nazi government. And now I'm being identified as a Jew and limited what I can do. I can't go into the park. In the afternoon, I want to go to the beach. I can't go in because I'm a Jew. So slowly step by step. I'm being identified as a Jew by having to wear a yellow star,

and I'm being limited to where I can be and when. Like, for instance, no Jew is allowed to be outside on the street when it gets dark. And this is, you're talking in 1939. And so that begins the process of saying to me, you don't really belong here. We don't want you. This is before the war started, correct? Just about right before the war. And this is because of Chamberlain.

Am I right? Yes. Okay. As you pointed out, Chamberlain decided that the thing to do with Germany is to give them what they want and they'll be okay. They'll sign an agreement and everybody's going to be happy. Euphoria. Everyone except you and all the Jews in Czechoslovakia. Exactly.

I guess he forgot about you. Eventually, Poland. Eventually, of course, of course. Okay, so now the war starts. What happens to you? You're 10 years old. Well, one thing that happens, I know the war has started. And the way I know it is because where I live is on the border of Poland,

on the eastern part of Slovakia, right north. Actually, Poland is about 30, 40 miles north of my city. and through my city goes the German army day and night beginning in 1939 September and I see the

tanks and the trucks and the bicycles and men in uniform and it's kind of for a tangy-year-old that's a kind of interesting exciting time but I also see that the Jews of my

town are being picked on by German soldiers And so this whole thing is becoming more and more real. And very soon, of course, as I pointed out, some limitations are brought upon my life. I can't go to the park. I can't go to the beach. I have to very yellow star. And slowly that are changes taking place.

The newspaper has a headline on it on top, the name of the paper. On the bottom of the paper, in approximately the same letter size, says, Slovakia is for Slovak's only. And I'm not a Slovak anymore. I'm not a Jew who is a foreigner in any right. Because the language I speak is Slovak. The school I went to Slovak. I'm still going to school.

But as time goes on, things begin to change. Because of the propaganda and because the Nazi party called the Hinker Party has taken on more and more control, things get worse. And one morning I'm walking home with one of my friends, and I carry her books. She's very pretty girl.

She happened to be Russian Orthodox. She tells me she does not want me to carry her books anymore. In fact, she doesn't want to talk to me anymore. And I'm befuddled, you know. Why? Well, because you're a Jew. And my father told me not to be friendly with a Jew. Because, A, Jews are responsible for every single bad things that happens in the world.

And you're evil, just like all the other Jews. Jews. And besides, socially, it's unacceptable to be friendly to be the Jew. So, it's a very personal kind of thing. And as time goes on, things get worse. By September

of 1940, I'm ready to go back to school. It's a public school like everybody else. And I get to the gate of the school, the principal stands there right in front of the gate, looks at me, says, Roth, you can't go in. I see, why not?

because you're a Jew. On that day, every single Jewish student in the whole country was thrown out of school. And simultaneously, by the way, all the Jewish teachers in the whole school system, the whole public school system of the whole country is also fired. So now begins the economic oppression.

Very soon, Jewish attorneys can no longer practice law. What was your father doing at this time? My father had a lumber business. it was producing railroad ties you know maybe 50, 60, 100,000 each year and ship them all over Europe and so he's still running the business but then comes along a new law

Jews are no longer allowed to own a business so my father in his wisdom says wait a minute this is not a good thing because if somebody walks into my business and throws me out and takes it away from me you know that's a big problem So in his wisdom, he decides to contact one of his Christian friends and saying to him, Albert, I know what's happening

and I'm sure you know what's happening. I would like you to take over my business. We'll put a new marquee on the sign, new stationery, your name on it. You have to do nothing except signs on papers, saying we transfer the business to you. And for that, I will reward you and I will continue running. You have to do nothing. Albert being a friend of decades with my father.

He says, sure, why not? He signs it. And so we economically don't suffer at the very beginning. However, a few months go by and one day Albert walks into my father's office and asked my father, Joe, how is business? So my father says to him, you know, it's great. You know, there's a war going on already. And railroad ties are important.

And we're shipping him and thank God, doing fine. He says, well, I've been thinking about it. After all, it's really is my business, isn't it? Holy cow. Hold on, hold on, Irving. We're going to go to a break. This is what we call a cliffhanger. Ladies and gentlemen, don't go away. Are you concerned about memory loss for yourself or a loved one?

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I'm willing to lay my heart, you know, on the line. Here's the issue. Mike Lindell with my pillow. You may notice that I have a bobble hell of him near me. He's here to remind all of us that when you go to mypillow.com, you get whopping discounts if you use the code Eric. Now, there are a lot of people who haven't done that, and we have your names here.

And Chris Heim's Ann Albin pointed out to me that there's like three pages of you whose first name is Eric. You, you're so, I mean, that's humiliating for me that even though your name is Eric, you're still not willing to use the code Eric. I mean, if you don't want to use it because it's my name, use it because it's your name.

But the point is that I see who you are, and I just feel humiliated by this. Please go to, go to mypillar.com. It's okay, Mike. It's going to be okay. Go to mypillar.com. Use the code, Eric. You're going to get whopping savings and really high quality.

products. Did I mention that? Thank you. Folks, I'm talking to Irving Roth. He appears in the new movie Never Again about the Holocaust. He was involved in the Holocaust. He was a victim and he's alive today. Sounds very healthy and youthful at 91. And you were just telling us this horrible moment about how this Gentile, I don't call him a Christian, a Gentile comes into your father's business and says, oh, by the way, you signed the business over to me, so it really is my business. In his own business, then I as a manager, which is terrible, but not awful totally because he still has a job, and he still gets paid.

And so this is you're talking in 1940 and 41. Meanwhile, of course, the war is going on. From 1939 on, Germany took over Poland, dismembered Czechoslovakia. now it's going into France, Belgium, Holland, and all of Europe, by and large, is now controlled by Germany and its allies. Italy, Hungary, and a few other countries. Slovakia, of course. So what they're really doing is controlling the whole, all of European continent, with the exception of the Soviet Union. Because they have an agreement with the Soviet Union, and they will not attack the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union will not attack them.

It's a written document. But of course, they're not worth the paper that written on. And in June of 1941, Germany attacks the Soviet Union. Soviet Union is totally unprepared. And at this point, Germany and Hungary and Slovakia go deep into the Soviet Union. and you would think that what they would do is begin to persecute the Jews. They don't do that. Well, they simply announced the Jewish population of every city, town, and village in the Soviet Union that they occupy.

Say you have to gather tomorrow with five pounds of luggage and you're going to be resettled. And if you don't show up, we know where you live. Because we have all the records and besides we have people in the Ukraine on the, places helping us with that, we'll burn your house down with you in it. So most of the Jews show up. And they march them out to the forest or to a ravine, as they did in Kiev, and machine on them. So the mass murder of Jews by bullets begins in the summer of 1941.

Now, we hear the rumor that Jews are being murdered. Because we can't believe that. Because Germany, after all, is a cultured country. My father, during World War I, fought in the trenches together with Hungarian soldiers and German soldiers. It can't be. This must be just a rumor. But more rumors. And in fact, by the end of 1941, probably around a half a million Jews in the Soviet Union had been murdered.

You know, I'm not aware of this history exactly because I know that the so-called final solution doesn't happen until the end of 42, right? And so the actual idea of the mass murder in the death camps still hadn't been hatched by the Nazis. But this is not, the death camps are not quite there yet. Right. At this point, they're beginning to think about it, evidently, but we don't know what's going on. So they keep murdering Jews in the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, Hungary decides that there are many Jews in Hungary, but 15, 20,000, who are not citizens. of Hungary, but mostly Polish Jews. So they ship them off to a place called

communist Podolsk when they are promptly murdered. Now, we hear these rumors, we don't really believe him. So history takes over again. So by the end of 1941, about a half a million Jews in the Soviet Union and some from other places like Hungary are now murdered and buried in mass graves. But the objective is that

total annihilation of the Jewish people. In German, it's called Endlauze. It means the final solution to the Jewish question. And the final solution is very specific. There shall be no living Jew on the continent. So they look at the number of Jews that exist in Europe, and how many they manage to murder? So they managed to murder about a half a million.

Total Jewish population of all of Europe is about 10 to 11 million. And that rate, it would take 10 years to get into the Jews. At half a million every six months, a million a year, 10 years, not a good solution. And so that's when something takes place called the Van Zay Conference. And it turns out it happens to take place on the 20th of January of 1942. So here you have the brain trust of Germany sitting together with a single-a-examination. them on the agenda. How are we going together of all the 10 million Jews or 11 million Jews in all of Europe in a short time? Now, Irving, I have to interrupt you just to ask you because

some of this I know and some I don't, but it's such a mind-boggling thing. It should be mind-boggling that the German leadership, the Nazis decided. It's one thing to say we hate these people. It's another thing to say we're going to murder every one of them. It takes a kind of a leap that we never saw before in civilization. And when we come back, I want to talk to you about this because it's just something that the reason the movie is called never again is because this was so horrible. We, the civilized world, vowed never again. And that's why we have to hear from you and where we have to talk about this. We'll be right back, folks.

I'm talking to Irving Roth. Don't go away. Folks, I'm talking to Irving Roth. What is that, Jewish? Roth is in German red. And evidently, as the Jews took on surnames, my great-grandfather must have had a red beard or something. I was just joking.

If Irving Roth is not Jewish, there's no Jewish name. Irving, your story, you know, you say it, you tell it with such, peace in your heart, smile on your face, but it's such dark stuff. We're getting to the point now where we talk about the Vonsei conference, which took place in the beginning of 1942, where the Germans make this decision to prioritize the murder of every man, woman, and child who is Jewish. Do we have any sense of why they believe this was necessary? In other words, if you want to win a war, you don't want to put your efforts, too much into something like that. Why do you think, or did they ever say why they wanted to do something as monstrous, as murdering millions of people?

The part of the propaganda of this whole idea, because the way they began to persecute the Jews in Germany in particular, they blamed Jews for losing World War I. they blame Jews for the huge super hyperinflation they had. They blame the Jews for the Versailles Conference and its unfairness to the German people. So they're at fault. So if someone is at fault, you need to punish them. So you begin by throwing out of school, you'll do it by economics, but eventually, what are you going to do with them? They're still there. So eventually you decide they've been evil enough.

They caused enough problem to you as a German. They took away your job. They swindled you. All that. They wreak your women. Because all pure humbug. But the longer you go with this thing, the further it takes you. Well, when you were talking now about what happened in 1942.

So how is your life now? You're 13, 14 years old. What's going on with you at this point? So the conference takes place in general. January, and by the middle of that year, middle of 1942, different countries and its leaderships are required by Germany to tell them what they want to do with their Jews. And Slovakia decides they want to get rid of him. Says, we'll do that for you.

All you have to do is put them in cattle cars, bring them to the Polish border, where we have built death camps. You'll pay us for that job. 500 crowns, I don't remember what the exchange rate was, you'll pay us 500 crowns for each you will take off your hands and we'll get rid of them for you. And so in the middle of the summer, early summer of 1942, on a Friday night in my town, there are about 2,000 Jews. 1,800, I picked up that night from their homes, many women and children, taken to the synagogue, which is a relatively small,

place because, you know, synagogues that don't, didn't have 2,000 seats in a small city. But 18,000 people are stuck in there. Now, the synagogue itself was a lovely place, but they had no bathrooms or running water. And here are 1,800 human beings with no bathrooms, no running water, no air conditioning, in the middle of the summer of 1942, stuffed there for 36 hours. And you were one of them? No. My father was exempt, my whole family. And what the 10% I'm talking about are those people who are still necessary to run the economy of the city.

So like the chief engineer of the city, of my city, was a Jew. But you can't just simply replace them in zero time on a Friday night. It takes time. So he's exempt from this, as is his family. So my family was exempt because my father was still running Albert's business, and he needed him. So he gets an exemption, which means most of my friends from school and my relatives are all gone. Because by Sunday afternoon, they're all marched the railroad station, stuffed into cattle cars, and the train leaves. I have no idea where they're going. They're gone.

A few months go by, a month's going. Morning, my grandfather and grandmother are arrested. And we managed to get them out. But we know we're in trouble. And so we must do something about it. We must disappear out of Slovakia. And so we decided to go into Hungary. And the reason we decided to go to Hungary, because Hungary was a strange place. At the beginning in 1941, the gallery of Polish Jews.

But the Hungarian Jews were still at home. They were not affected by the deportation at all in 1942, or 43 for that matter. So we, off to Hungary, we go. My grandparents, my parents, my brother and I, we're in Hungary, it's 1943, beginning of 1944. Hungary is fundamentally taken over, in a sense, the political system by the Nazi group called Nylush, or the Strait Arrow Party, and they're in totally in agreement with Nazi Germany together of the Jews.

And so in the spring of 1944, in 53 days, 437,000 Jews are taken from their homes through a quick stop at a ghetto into cattle cars to Auschwitz. That's what happens to me. I'm living in a small village with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousin. My father and mother went off, when we came to Hungary, go off to Budapest. Because my father needed a job. And so he was an accountant by education and profession. They went to Budapest, got a job, and started working there in 43. And things seemed to be working pretty well.

Because the war is going well for England and America. and Russia. Because by 1944, beginning of 44, France is now in American hands. Italy is in American hands. They're about to

invade France in June of 1944. They're bombing the cities of Germany day and night. And their anti-aircraft guns can't shoot them down. So it looks good. And we're in Hungary. I'm still alive, as is my brother, my parents, grandparents,

waiting for the war to end quickly. In the spring of 1944, Hungary, the Hungarian police, part of the military, with the help of 250 members of the Gestapo under the leadership of Adolf Eichmann. We're going to pause right there. We'll be back, folks. More with Irving Raw. Folks, I'm talking to Irving Roth. There's a movie.

It's called Never Again. It's in theaters October 13th and 15th. And we want you to go see it. Irving appears in it along with many others. Irving, you just, I want to hear your whole story. We're not going to get to it in the next few minutes. So you're telling me that right now, this was 1944, that you kind of to the end. You've been very successful in eluding the Nazis up until this point. So where are we now?

What month is it in 44? It is end of April, beginning of May of 1944, and the deportation of the Jews from Hungary takes place. In 53 days, 437,000 Jews of Hungary disappeared in a way. So I'm in a cattle car. After three days it stops. It's nighttime. The doors are slid open and everybody out, screaming and yelling. Harhouse. Mahshna, take nothing with you.

Form lines. I get out. All these people with submachine guns and weapons telling us to stand in line. In the distance, I see flames coming out of chimneys. You can imagine the scary part of that because it's against the

black sky. And the line begins to move and suddenly I'm separated from my grandfather and grandmother and an aunt and 10-year-old cousin and my brother and I going one direction. In fact, I would say about 10% or 12% of the people who arrived on that train, about 4,000 approximately. 3,700, 3,800 are separated from the small group, and they're much of those buildings, the flames. Now, of course, we have no idea what they are. They're told they're going to take shower and after the shower, but they've been in a train for so many days, after the shower, they're going to get a hot meal and things will be organized. But really what happens is

men and women are separated, going down a set of steps. There are four of these major buildings, building complexes really, because they consist of gas chambers and crematoria. And that night, by the next 24 hours, my grandfather and grandmother, and then cousin and all the 3,700 or so people of my old transport are now ashes. I'm tattooed on my arm and marched out of that within a number of hours to another part of the camp,

which is about two miles away, which is the slave labor camp, and I'm assigned to work. Now here I am 14 and a half years old. I've never worked in my life. I lived in the city, and suddenly I am not draining swamps and plowing fields.

hard labor, very little food, about 350 calories a day. It was calculated scientifically that if you give a body by 350, 400 calories a day, the body can sustain itself for six to eight months, at which time your body gives up and you either die, and if you don't,

then a new process for people who survived the first selection. And that is another selection. so that you come back from work, they take you to take a shower. So you get undressed. And as you're walking into the shower, there's a doctor in uniform who looks at you for an instant of time and decides we should to continue to live or not. That's simple.

It's mind-boggling to me that you experience this, and I'm talking to you right now about this. We're out of time in this hour. Folks, I want to encourage you the movie. is never again. It's in theaters October 13th and 15th featuring Irving Roth and many other guests, including our friend Dennis Prager. We're out of time now, but we're going to keep you around Irving to continue the conversation in any event. Thank you so much for your time thus far. Thank you.