My Name Was Number 133909 and I Sang

St. Michael Friends of the Library is hosting a special event that you will not want to miss.

The author, Murray Brandys, will speak at the St. Michael City Center on Wednesday, May 4 at 7 PM  He has written an eloquent biography of what it was like to live through the Holocaust.  

This is the story of Murray Brandys, husband, father, uncle, son-in-law, and friend. This is the story of Moniek Brandys, a Polish immigrant of Jewish faith who traveled to the United States at a young age, who graduated with honors from high school, and who became a successful businessman. But, mostly, this is the story of No. 133909, a Holocaust survivor, captured by German soldiers at age 14 and forced into five years of Nazi labor and concentration camps, and liberated at the age of 20. This is the story that he could not share until now, the story that he felt would weigh too heavily on his family in earlier years.

 Here is part of the letter he wrote to his family. 

A NOTE TO MY CHILDREN, HOWARD AND CHERYL

Since the day I was liberated I told myself that if I ever married and had children, I would never tell my family the stories of my life in Nazi concentration camps. At the time, I believed that I should not burden my wife or my children with the horrors I had lived and witnessed. I felt sure that it might darken your lives, that perhaps sad happenings would always remind you of the stories you had been told. Besides, I believed that marriage and growing up can themselves be challenging, so why add another burden by telling you my history? I have kept that promise to myself these fifty-plus years, but it has not always been easy not to tell you more, not to reveal more of my past.

In recent years, however, I began wanting you to truly understand the Holocaust, to know my stories, to share more of my life with you. Now, Howard and Cheryl, as you have children of your own, I especially want u you to understand my life and to be able to pass on to your children the lessons of the Holocaust - how Germany, a civilized democracy, was able to turn into an evil dictatorship, The Third Reich. I want you to understand what can happen when good people do nothing, when they don't care about or allow freedom of expression, when they look away when neighbors are abused, when they place economic well-being ahead of basic human values.

Sometime soon all Holocaust survivors, including myself, will be gone. I don't want what we suffered and learned and can teach to be forgotten.

I hope you will read this memoir and understand why I kept my life story silent for so long. Please teach your children and your children's children about the Holocaust and the destruction of six million of our brethren, plus millions more. It's been said before, but these facts should never be forgotten.

Love, Dad

If you are a history buff or an activist, you will not want to miss this event. 

See you there!