Holocaust survivor, Erwin Froman, captivated over a hundred audience members at Penn State Behrend on Holocaust Remembrance Day with his compelling story of survival inside and outside the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp.

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Froman’s visit to Behrend wasn’t just by random luck of the draw, however. Amy Carney, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, has close family ties with the survivor, who befriended Carney’s great-grandparents and grandmother. Froman suggested to give his speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, which is a day in which Jewish communities commemorate those who fell victim to persecution and mass murder of the Nazi regime.

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“If I don’t share, then there will be no one left to tell this story. We are dying out,” said the 89-year-old survivor, who is the only remaining survivor in his current residence of Lorain County, Ohio. Of the twenty-four survivors Froman knew, only his sister in Atlanta, a friend in California and himself remain among the few who are left to represent the six million lives lost during the Holocaust.

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Froman recounted the horrors of deportation, the separation of his family and his struggle for survival in the concentration camp through his one hour speech, transporting listeners back to 1941 in the small town of Romania.

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The youngest of 10 children, Froman was raised in a family of Orthodox Jews in a small village consisting of mostly farmland. His family values stemmed from his education, where by age eight, he was enrolled in the first grade.

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“Public schools did not start until you were eight years old,” Froman said. There were four rooms in the public school; two rooms for first and second grade and the other two for third and fourth grade. Two married couples taught each grade and each room held 85-95 children.

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Froman finished four years of grade school, but did not begin fifth grade. His education was cut short in 1941 when his village became occupied by Hungary, where half of the Jews from the village were gathered up in a school room and transported to Poland. After having crossed the border into Poland, the Jews who were transported by the Hungarians were shot.

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“It wasn’t long until news came out that we had to wear a yellow star,” Froman said. From that point forward, Froman would discover that not only was his education stripped away from him, but everything else in his life that made him whole.

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At just fourteen years old, Froman and his family of 30 were gathered up by German soldiers and loaded into a crowded cattle car. Froman and his family were told that they were being transported to farms to supplement demand for labor. A day and a half of travel went by in the harsh conditions in the cattle car before Froman and his family members arrived at the gates of Auschwitz concentration camp.

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“We didn’t know anything about Auschwitz,” Froman said. As the cattle car doors opened, fourteen-year-old Froman clutched his father’s hand tightly as he heard unexplainable noises, dogs barking, and the voices of inmates in the camp unloading people from the cars.

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“That was the last time I saw my family, my mom,” Froman said. “I can still feel the feeling holding my father’s hand today. I was hit with the butt of a rifle in the shoulder and we were separated. That was the last I saw him.”

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Froman was then stripped of his belongings and assigned to quarters, where he was forced to share a cot with six other inmates. Still unaware of what was happening in Auschwitz, Froman approached an inmate who had been there for two weeks and asked him where his family had gone.

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The man responded, “What do you smell? You smell flesh. Burning flesh.” The man proceeded to tell Froman that the day he arrived at the camp, many of the deportees were sent to the gas chambers and then to crematoriums.

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“They’re all gone,” the man said. “Forget it.”

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Froman and the younger inmates were then separated from the other inmates during assembly and transported on trucks to another part of the camp to ensure that the crematoriums were running twenty-four hours a day. His five sisters who survived saw Froman on the truck and immediately thought they had lost their brother.  

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After three weeks in Auschwitz, Froman was transported to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria where he was forced to build tunnels. From this point on, Froman was not only stripped of his belongings, but his identity.

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“My name was no longer Erwin. My identity was a number. I was number 74,867,” Froman said.

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The conditions at the labor camp were brutal. Froman was forced to work long hours on hills made of sandstone and received very little food rations. Coffee and soup was provided in the mornings and a piece of bread was provided for dinner.

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The harsh conditions and the lack of sanitation inflicted many injuries and diseases at the camp. Froman had a scratch on his ankle that became infected. He was sent to the infirmary where professionals treated the infection. Although his scratch was still exposed, Froman requested to return to work in fear of his alternative fate.

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While in the camp, people asked Froman, “How do you hold up like this?”

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“My belief was so strong,” Froman said. “That someday, I’m going to be free and I’m going to live and be able to talk about the greatness of all.”

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On May 7, 1945, American soldiers liberated the Mauthausen camp. Froman recalled this day with tears in his eyes as he heard the words, “You’re free,” escape the voice of an American soldier.

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“Before we left home, our father told us whoever is alive, that’s where we are going to meet, at home,” Froman said. After two weeks of traveling on the roof of a train, Froman finally made it home with no sign of his family.

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However, a soldier who stopped in the village approached Froman and told him that four of his six sisters were alive in Germany. After weeks of traveling back to Germany, becoming ill, and being submitted to a hospital, Froman finally reunited with his sisters.

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Froman and his sisters moved to the United States, where he eventually found work at a kosher butcher shop in Amherst, Ohio.

“I came to the ‘Golden Country,’” said Froman. “I was free.”

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Years passed before Froman saw holocaust survivor and author, Elie Wiesel, on the Oprah Winfrey Show promoting his book, “Night.” Froman read the book and sent a letter to Wiesel explaining his similar experiences in Auschwitz. Wiesel immediately called him back and they spoke on the phone for 45 minutes, where Wiesel thanked Froman for sharing his story.

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Froman closed his speech by wishing students, faculty, and staff good success, sharing his gratitude for the life he was given back in the U.S.

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“You have to realize that this country is the greatest country in the world. There’s none better,” Froman said. “You have rights and your rights cannot be taken away.”

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“With this,” Froman concluded, “I say, god bless you all, and god bless the United States of America.”