CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Friday, Jan. 27 is a day of remembrance, as we look back at the horrors of the Holocaust and the lives that were taken. Approximately 6 million Jewish people were killed decades ago has Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany. Survivors have since shared their stories, including a man living in Charlotte.
Irving Bienstock is 96 years old. He has a picture of him when he was just one year old with his aunt. It's one of the few things he has from his home. He grew up in Nazi Germany, and his family looked for ways to get out.
“We were leaving Germany illegally,” Bienstock said. "How could you take anything from them?”
Even though he only had that photo, he has thousands of memories and stories.
“I never forget it. I still dream about it," Bienstock said. "6 million people. How do you murder 6 million people?"
He is one of the few that escaped Nazi Germany and survived the Holocaust. Tragically, several family members were killed during that era. He told WCNC Charlotte about the day after Hitler took power.
“On a Friday morning, on September 28 at six in the morning, they arrested the Polish Jews,” Bienstoick said. “They put them on trains and they dropped them across the border.”
"30,000 were sent to camps, it was the beginning of the Holocaust."
Bienstock said his family members were taken to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died at the hands of Nazis.
"That was the last time I saw my grandmother, my uncles, my aunt, my cousins.”
He said some have told him it's hard to believe. But the proof is shown in the photographs that came after the Nazi regime fell.
“They saw the places where they were gassed, and burned," Bienstock said.
He shared an urgent message: keep the memory of the Holocaust alive to ensure something like it never happens again.
“The world should know what the Nazis did to us."
Contact Austin Walker at awalker@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.