The angelic notes of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony filled Diller Hall as students and faculty arrived for this year’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, a solemn reminder that history itself is a collection of voices that must not fade.

Standing before the students and faculty was Leah Rozenfeld Sills, a member of multiple Holocaust remembrance and Human Rights organizations. She shared the story of her father and his journey from German-occupied Poland to the United States, with the tagline “a story, a discovery, a mission.” To accompany her story about her father, she talked about the forgotten man who saved his life, highlighting the importance of telling stories from the past.

While the juniors and seniors remained in the auditorium and listened to Sills’ presentation, the underclassmen went to their homerooms. They listened to individual stories told by survivors or close relatives of those who survived the Holocaust. After 45 minutes, the two groups switched: the underclassmen listened to Sills, and the upperclassmen went to their homerooms. After the event, students often talked amongst themselves about what they heard and shared the stories that they heard.

Leah’s family story starts with her grandfather, Adas, a Polish manufacturer. He hesitated to take his annual summer trip west to Belgium and France because of rising tensions in Europe. With insistence from his wife, Jenny, he left for Belgium in August of 1939, and soon after, in September, Germany invaded Poland, and the war was underway. Adas was separated from his family without knowing how long it would be until he saw them again.

While the family was separated, Jenny and her son, Stephen, were kicked out of their apartment by Nazi soldiers, and they were forced to move in with Jenny’s parents. That’s when she decided she would take Stephen and herself through enemy territory to be reunited with her husband.

Together they both boarded a train that would go from Poland through Germany into Belgium. Jenny had gone to a German school, so she spoke fluent German. Stephen, on the other hand, did not. She told him not to speak a word as “their lives depend upon his silence.” He was careful and kept quiet until they made it to Belgium.

Once the family was reunited, they began to hop from country to country, evading the Nazis. They went through Belgium to France, Spain, Portugal, and ended up in Lisbon, where they had run out of money to go anywhere else. It was in Lisbon where they encountered two “guardian angels.” One was a woman from New Jersey on vacation in Lisbon, and the other was a Portuguese diplomat; both gave them their ticket to the United States.

The woman from New Jersey saw that the family needed money to travel to the United States for their freedom, and she bought them three tickets to New York City. Adas and his family were forever grateful and later repaid her for the tickets once they got to New York. She literally bought their ticket to freedom. The Portuguese diplomat, Aristides Sousa Mendes, granted over a thousand travel visas for Jewish people attempting to escape Europe.

Aristides Sousa Mendes went against orders from the president forbidding diplomats from signing travel visas. He said his “desire is to be with God against Man than to be with Man against God.” He risked his job and his life to grant thousands of Jewish people their freedom. In turn, he was fired and would never reach the financial success he once had. He died in 1957, poor and forgotten.

When Sills learned of this brave man who put his job and his life on the line to save thousands of Jewish people, she knew she had to share his story. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a time to hear stories of the past, in a time when there is still so much hate in the world. Highlighting heroes like Aristides Sousa Mendes shows that hate can be overcome by the kindness of others.

Similar stories of bravery and loss rolled throughout Hackley’s homerooms.

The story of Arthur Schertz was one of the many being shared. Told by his daughter, Gloria Lazar, his experiences highlight the power of putting your future in your own hands.

Gloria begins her father’s story with his escape in 1941, jumping from a moving train.

“God helps those who help themselves,” Arthur told his daughter. He began to control his own fate years before.

Arthur Schertz was born in Brzozów, Poland, one of eight children. His family was Orthodox Jews, and his father was a cantor in a synagogue. Along with that, they were in the tobacco and shoe business. In early adulthood, Arthur would travel 200 miles south to Warsaw to observe shoe fashion trends and was seen as a charismatic person.

In 1939, when Arthur was 28, the Nazis marched into Poland. All young men were told to flee, but Arthur had nowhere to go. Eventually, the Nazis came to Jewish families and demanded more than 40,000 dollars in modern currency.

One night, Arthur asked his mother where his father was. Her response is what ensured his survival.

“He’s downstairs praying for God to save us,” Arthur’s mother said while opening a window, “you can save yourself – jump.”

Soon after he escaped from the home, he was beaten by soldiers and taken to a Russian prison. He and the rest of the people in the jail were promised papers that would ensure their safety.

The conditions in the jail were horrible: 40 men in one room, a garbage can as a toilet, and hot water as soup. Unfortunately, the situation would only escalate.

Soon after, more than 60 men, including Arthur, would be shoved into a cattle car to travel for ten days. They were brought to a Russian camp and forced into labor.

When they arrived, there was no shelter. They slept in sacks on the ground until they finished construction of their cabins.

During the winter of 1941, when Arthur was at this camp, he watched people lose noses and ears to frostbite, and he watched people die of starvation and hypothermia. Arthur, being the strongest and healthiest, often was “taken out to dig holes and bury the dead,” says Gloria. Only 50 out of 500 people survived that winter.

Concluding that winter, the men were lined up. If they were deemed healthy, they went to the right. Unhealthy, left. Arthur saw his brother, Simon, for the last time, walking left while he went right; he was unaware that his brother was even in the same camp.

The men who went to the right were sent to fight with the Russian army. When offered to join the Polish army, he quickly accepted. This did not offer him any clarity on his security.

“I was going from one fire to another,” Arthur says to Gloria.

This is when he leaped off the train to change his fate. After that epochal jump, he proceeded to Kyrgyzstan and Russia. There, he worked for the president of a Russian commune and finally felt sheltered.

While there, he met and fell in love with a girl. They shared flour and lunch. When he contracted malaria, the girl and her parents cared for him until he recovered.

When the war ended in 1945, his mission became finding his family in Poland. He sadly left the girl; she needed to stay with her parents. Arthur wore a ruby ring until his death; Gloria suspects this ring was from the girl.

Using Simon’s identity to receive a passport, Arthur travelled to Poland. He never found any of his immediate family. He believes that they were shot in the woods after digging their own graves. Along with his siblings’ and parents’ deaths, his infant niece died, and her name was lost in war. To this day, her name is not known.

Arthur searched the globe for any of his extended family. Finally, he found a family member in the United States. As a product of his living conditions, Arthur was too weak to come to America. Pitying him, somebody in the US government sent him food, and he soon came to New York.

He married in 1949 and opened a delicatessen in Scarsdale. He never spoke of his experiences until his senior years.

“He didn’t talk about it for 35 years…We would sit together in my childhood bedroom, and he would tell that story,” said Gloria.

Gloria described him as an optimistic person who was cautious about bringing up tragic stories. The final recording ended up being almost three hours.

“You are now keeping the Holocaust story alive by listening to this story,” said Arthur at the end of the recording.