Ben Lesser

Benjamin Lesser (or Leser) was born to a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland. He had four siblings. He was 11 years old in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded his country, and his world changed forever. In May 1944, he and his entire family were deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz Birkenau.
Ben was selected for slave labor in another camp. In February-March 1945, as the Red Army approached, Ben and his cousin Isaac were sent with thousands of others on a death march to Buchenwald, then put on a death train to Dachau.
Isaac died just as the camp was liberated in April, and Ben lost consciousness. He remembers waking up four months later in St. Ottilien Hospital in Germany.
Ben and his older sister Lola were the only survivors of his immediate family of seven. In 1947, he emigrated to the USA, where he settled in Los Angeles. He married Jean Singer in 1950 and the couple had two children. He became a successful realtor. Ben spoke publicly about the Holocaust for the first time at his grandson Adam’s school. Since then, he has devoted his time to speaking to students in schools and colleges. In 2009, Ben founded the ZACHOR Holocaust Remembrance Foundation to educate young people. He published his memoir, Living a Life that Matters:
From Nazi Nightmare to American Dream in 2011. He was featured in the History Channel's 2015 documentary, The Liberators: Why We Fought.