Meyer Hack, a 95 year old survivor from the Auschwitz Nazi death camp donated jewelery he collected from the clothes of Jews who were killed to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial at Israel.
Meyer Hack, who now resides in Boston handed over eight pieces of jewelry to the Holocaust Museum on Monday.The jewelry items consisted of gold, silver and diamond studded jewelry.
If caught by German officers Hack would have been executed, just like three of his friends who were hanged for smuggling jewelry.
Hack’s mother and sister were gassed and killed as soon as they arrived at Auschwitz. He and his brother were made slave laborers. Hack lied to his captors that he was a tailor, which earned him a transfer to the clothing chamber where he was forced to sort clothing that was stripped off inmates before been gassed, this was where he found the jewels. His brother was assigned to pull laundry carts, a very tiring ordeal which made his brother very exhausted. He witnessed the killing of his brother by a Nazi guard, who struck him many times on the head with a wooden plank.
Hack escaped from Munich to the forests where he stayed until liberation. He later migrated to Boston, America where he worked at a clothing store. He hid the Jewelry in a box in the attic for six decades. He is also married to a lady he met in the camps and has two children.
Six million Jews are said to have perished in the Holocaust. This eventually led to the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948.
According to reuters an official at the Holocaust Museum, Yehudit Shenhav said that the museum had collected about 22,000 items from survivors such as Meyer Hack. She also noted that most of the items were handed over in later life, probably because the victims wanted to keep the items to remember the ordeal, but now wanted us to keep them for posterity.
