Holocaust survivor remembers tragic day he lost his brother and mother in Auschwitz

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated Wednesday, April 27 and Thursday, April 28.

Frank Grunwald said he was 6-years-old when the Nazi army invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939.

Grunwald and his family were all moved to Auschwitz.

He remembered that the crematorium would run full time.

“The heavy smoke, full of ash, was pretty much dispersing heavy smoke around the camp,” said Grunwald. “If the wind was coming in the right direction, towards us, we were covered by human ash.”

He said he was in a part of the camp the Nazi’s used for propaganda.

“We knew that we were good for about six months. Every six months they would, basically, gas 5,000 or 6,000 people and then more people would come in,” explained Grunwald. “My brother and I were both on death row. My brother John was 16 and I was 12, directly in front of the SS people that were there, and Mengele, he grabbed me and moved me with a group of older kids who survived.”

He said a man that was in the camp saved him, but left his brother on death row. He said his mother saw what happened.

“She knew he was doomed,” he said. “She elected to stay with him and she died with him.”

He would, eventually, move to New York City, marry his wife, have two boys and five grandchildren, and retire in Indianapolis.

News 8 asked what he wanted people to know about the Holocaust. He responded with, “Everything.”

Grunwald said it was the largest mass murder of a segment of the population in the history of mankind.