Everything changed during the first week of September, 1939 when Nazi soldiers marched into and occupied his hometown. The synagogue was converted into a horse stable. The Jewish residents were forced to move into a section designated as "the Jewish Quarter", or ghetto. All Jews were forced to wear yellow Star of Davids on the front and rear of all their clothing. All freedoms were removed. They had to follow a very strict curfew. They were fed a minimal ration of bread and soup. Many died or became ill. His older brother, Chaim, and his mother perished here.
The Pabianice Ghetto was soon liquidated and those who survived were sent to the larger Lodz Ghetto, where their treatment was even worse. Again, many died from disease or mistreatment by the Nazis. In 1944 the Lodz Ghetto was liquidated. Jack and his remaining family members (his father and two sisters) were sent to Auschwitz/Birkenau. His sisters were murdered in Auschwitz. He and his father were selected to work at the Kaufering concentration camp in Germany and then to Dachau.. Jack was the only member of his immediate family to survive the camps. He was liberated on May 1, 1945 at the age of 16. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1946 as a war orphan, learned English, graduated high school, and went to college. He met his future wife in 1952, married her in 1953 and fathered two children--a son and then a daughter, eighteen months later.
Jack graduated from Chicago's Central YMCA High School in 1950. He attended Roosevelt University and graduated from Walton School of Commerce in accounting and business administration in 1953. He also served in the US Army during the Korean Conflict.
The pain from his years in the ghettos and concentration camps was often times unbearable. He associated with a small group of Jewish refugees in his new home of Skokie, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago), but rarely discussed his war time experiences with anyone else, including his children. It wasn't until his children had grown and had children of their own that he began to open up about his past.
When he moved to Denver in 1985 he met some people who encouraged him to take his story to the classroom and began lecturing in the Denver metropolitan area. Although, still painful, he soon became more comfortable with his storytelling technique. He also became aware of how his stories had impacted many of the students he lectured to. Soon he was offered speaking engagements all over the state and around the country--to students (from middle school to college), juvenile detention centers, church groups and civic groups and the military.
Today his lectures are in great demand. His story reaches more than 45,000 people each year.
