Brookline man talks about surviving the Holocaust

BROOKLINE, Mass. — Michael Gruenbaum said he’s incredibly blessed.

“Every day when I get up I say to myself, ‘I’m so lucky,’” Gruenbaum said.

In 1942, shortly after Gruenbaum’s father was arrested and taken from their home in Prague and murdered by the Nazis, he was shipped to Terezin, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia with his mother and sister. He was separated from them and put in a dormitory with other Jewish boys.

He remained there for nearly three years until the end of World War II.

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“Out of the 80 that went through our room in the one that I was in, only 12 survived,” he said.

While Gruenbaum was held captive, Terezin was used as propaganda for the Germans. They even staged a soccer match during a visit by the International Red Cross to show the world all was good, but it was all a hoax. Terezin was actually a transit concentration camp. Jews were imprisoned there before being shipped to Auschwitz and certain death.

Gruenbaum and his family eluded being put on a transport four times, including once thanks to a teddy bear. His mother made teddy bears for the Nazi officers to give to their children for Christmas. When they realized without his mother there wouldn’t be any more teddy bears, they were pulled off the train, avoiding the gas chamber.

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“Then, in January after Auschwitz was liberated, the Germans started to build a gas chamber in Terezin. Luckily, they ran out of time and so the rest is history and I’m still here,” he said.

Gruenbaum didn’t talk about his experience at Terezin for most of his life, even to his family. But in 2017 he wrote a book about his experience in captivity. It’s called Somewhere There Still Is A Sun. It’s now in 13 different languages.

“I find that it’s my duty to represent all those kids that had much more talent than I had and unfortunately their life was cut short,” he said.

After being liberated Gruenbaum emigrated to the U.S. where he graduated from MIT. The Terezin survivors have reunions every four or five years. At the last one, in Prague, they brought their families along, 62 people in total.

“I always say Hitler would be turning in his grave if he heard about that,” Gruenbaum said.

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Gruenbaum has lived in Brookline for nearly 60 years. He worked for the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Massachusetts Department of Public Works. He said he thinks every day about the boys in his dormitory that were sent to Auschwitz.

Cox Media Group