Manfred Goldberg wants you to know how the Nazis took his brother's life. and how the angel saved him

london – Manfred Goldberg was just 13 years old when – having his skin peeled off and regrouping towards the SS rear guard in a Nazi labor camp in Latvia – a man leaned on his shoulder and whispered Told the secret that saved the life of a young Jew.

The man told him: “If he happens to ask your age, say you are 17.”

Goldberg followed the advice and the defender brought him to the group selected for slave labor. Only later did he realize that young prisoners were being sent to die because the Guard considered those under 17 too young to work for the Nazi war machine.

“Sometimes I think that man was an angel sent to save me,” Goldberg said. “I would never see him again.”

Monday's ceremony, which marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, is about more than just remembering some 6 million Jews. It's a reminder that the number of survivors is dwindling, with fewer people testifying to the Nazi genocide at a time of growing Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

“I was just in the middle of an ocean,” he said in an interview at London's Jewish Care Center for Holocaust Survivors. “But I made up my mind that as long as God gave me the strength, body and spirit, to keep doing this, I committed myself to keep doing this. Do. That’s why I’m here talking to you at 94 years old.”

This is his story.

Manfred was born in Kassel, a city of about 220,000 in central Germany. He was 3 years old when the Nazis came to power in 1933, and he didn't realize the changes in the country until he was enrolled in a nearby Jewish elementary school.

By then, the Hitler Youth, an organization that outwardly resembled the Boy Scouts but was used to indoctrinate children into Nazi ideology, had begun spreading hatred against Jews.

“They would sometimes wait for us, ambush us and beat us or curse us,” Goldberg said.

Children are warned: run or face more trouble.

As the Nazis systematically excluded Jews from public life, they first tried to deport Goldberg's father and then threatened to send him to a concentration camp. Manfred's mother Rosa begged for time to grant him a visa to immigrate.

She heard diplomats at the British Embassy in Berlin might be able to help, so she traveled 200 miles to see them. There she found Frank Foley, a British agent whose work at the embassy was used to cover up his espionage activities and who ultimately authorized visas for more than 10,000 Jews to escape Germany.

“I believe he's a man of heart,” Goldberg said.

Foley gave Goldberg's father an emergency visa and told his mother that the family would likely follow in the coming weeks. But 10 days later, on September 1, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland. The family is separated.

When the war broke out, Germany tightened its anti-Semitic laws.

Jews are required to wear a yellow six-pointed star outdoors and can only buy food in certain stores. When the stores ran out, the Jews were unlucky.

One day, Goldberg's mother told him to put on his bag, cover the stars on his jacket, and go with her to a non-Jewish bakery. She stood across the street, gave him a few coins and told him to pop into the store, ask for a loaf of bread, put the money on the counter and pick up the loaf before anyone stopped him.

“I was 7 or 8 years old. I was just doing what she asked,” he said. “But looking back, I realize how serious the situation must have been. She might be hungry, but she couldn't help but see her child suffer from hunger. ''

Then, in 1942, the Nazi regime began what was known as the “Final Solution,” the systematic execution of European Jewry.

When the SS smashed in the door of the Goldbergs' modest apartment, they gave his mother just 10 minutes to pack a suitcase. Three days and three nights on a train without food or water took his brother, Herman, and their mother to Riga, the capital of Latvia, beginning a nightmare that would take him to five camps over the next three years.

Manfred lost his name. He became No. 56478.

Soon, they arrived at a sub-training camp called PRECU, where Goldberg and his mother were placed. But Hermann was still too young, and Manfred and Rosa stayed in the camp while they went off to work. Eventually, the SS came and took the child away. Manfred would never see his brother again.

“The next morning, my mother and I had to line up to go to work as if nothing had happened,” he said. “Mourning happens internally, but if we refused to go to work, we would lose our lives.”

Just months later, Goldberg faced the same fate as his brother when an unknown benefactor whispered something in his ear.

As the Nazis lost ground on the Eastern Front, they moved the prisoners westward, getting them out of Russian hands and continuing to kill.

Goldberg was moved to Stutow, a camp near the Polish city of Gdank, and his front door was known as the Portal of Death because so few prisoners survived. More than 60,000 people died at the camp due to typhus, a lethal injection that began in June 1944 after burning with Zyklon B, the same compound used in the Auschwitz gas chambers.

But the final horror is coming.

As the war ended in Europe, the Nazis continued to deport prisoners westward into central Germany.

Goldberg and his mother were marched 25 miles northwest, where hundreds of prisoners were put on barges and held for several days without food or water. When the SS guards disappeared, the stronger prisoners tore open the planks and used them as oars to row the boat back to shore.

But, just like when prisoners landed, the guards returned. First, they shot those who were too weak to escape, then rounded up those on shore, including Goldberg and his mother, and began marching them back into Germany.

Then columns of British tanks arrived.

“Suddenly, our armed guards who were still killing people earlier because they wouldn't keep up turned around and ran in the opposite direction, away from us,” Goldberg recalled. “The people were jubilant.” We are not vigilant. We are available! We are available! …You can't imagine the joy we felt. ''

After reuniting with his father in England, Goldberg forged a career as an engineer, married with four children.

For more than 50 years, he refused to tell his story.

He wanted his children to have normal parents who did not bear the weight of the Holocaust. But about 20 years ago, when he was in his 70s, his synagogue asked him to attend a memorial service. His wife, Shary, encouraged him to remember: Who will tell your story when you're gone?

He never looked back.

“Silence never helps the oppressed,” Goldberg said. “It always helps the oppressor.”

The living room of Goldberg's London residence is a testament to everything that was important to him, a gallery filled with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a lifetime of family gatherings. To stand in the room was to see a man celebrating the miracle of the life he was allowed to live.

But there is another photo.

It's a drawing of a chubby boy with a checkered bow and a hint of a smile on his lips. Hanging next to the front door where it can be seen every time Goldberg walks into the world, it's a picture of another boy who didn't have a chance.

Herman.

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Nat Castaneda contributed to this story.