Hank Brodt, Holocaust Survivor (August 15)

Hank Brodt, Holocaust Survivor

Born in December, 1925 in Boryslaw, Poland, the youngest of three children, Hank Brodt was only eight months old when his father died. At age six he went to live in an orphanage — his mother could no longer afford to raise him — but he returned home at 13, after his older brother and sister had married and moved out.

Even at his young age, Brodt found a job working on typewriters, replacing Latin letters with Russian ones, and made a meager salary to support him and his mother. On September 3, 1943, German and Ukrainian police began rounding up many of the Jews of his town, particularly the children and elderly who were too frail to work, and Brodt’s 58-year old mother made the list.

Eventually Brodt was sent to work at a forced labor camp and later survived five concentration camps. He emigrated to the United States after World War II and later served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War.

For most of his life he refused to speak about his concentration camp experience, even to his children. Once Brodt, now a retired carpenter, moved to High Point and joined Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, Rabbi Fred Guttman began encouraging him to share his story. In 2006, Guttman convinced Brodt to travel to Poland to attend the March of the Living.