COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO -- David Bram survived five painful years in Hitler's concentration camps. His story will forever live on as generations learn from him and other survivors.
As Bram shows FOX21 News the numbers tattooed on his arm and explains, he takes this reporter back to 1940 when he was just 13 years old, the day the Germans took him away and the last day he saw his family.
“I had four brothers and one sister, and my parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts -- I lost everybody,” said Bram.
By 1943, Bram was 16 years old, he was taken to Auschwitz, living everyday in fear while watching thousands of Jews being killed.
“It was a real challenge just to survive an hour so there wasn't anything different from one day to the next, because the challenge was constantly around the clock, the same thing,” said Bram.
In Auschwitz alone, it's believed as many as 6,000 Jews were gassed on a daily basis. Concentration camps were also used as forced labor camps where thousands of prisoners suffered from exhaustion and starvation.
To many, surviving the concentration camps was a miracle,but for Bram it was luck, determination and his faith.
“I just kept hoping on that someday I'd be able to live a decent life and be practicing Judaism again,” said Bram.
And he did just that. Moving to Colorado Springs in 1954, Bram become a very successful business man and entrepreneur. He helped open Temple Shalom, has been married for 55 years, with four children and seven grandchildren.
But on a day when people around the world remember the Holocaust, Bram says we can never forget so it will never happen again.
Bram also fought for the U.S. Army. He often speaks at Fort Carson and at schools across the state.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKXRM