Ransom Everglades will also recognize that day with a 7 p.m. assembly at Swenson Hall April 24 that will feature a talk by Holocaust survivor Alex Gross. The entire community is invited.

Eisenstein, who planned to travel to Germany after his presentation to join the annual March of the Living on Yom HaShoah, was introduced by faculty member Gila Aloni and assisted to the stage by members of the Jewish Student Association. The assembly began with a period of somber reflection as Laura Liu '19 played the violin; several students then described modern-day incidents of discrimination.

Eisenstein lost his parents, three sisters and two-year-old nephew to the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, but managed to survive with his brother. He described the terror of watching fellow Jews shot down with machine guns in the streets; sleeping in a Jewish cemetery to try to escape; being forced to work at Auschwitz with only a bit of potato and salt water to eat each day; and listening to the cries and screams of those killed in the gas chambers before he was finally rescued by Americans when the war concluded.

"Most of the people vanished – they left this world," he said. "There must be some kind of luck that I am here and can relay my story ... I cannot tell you how happy I am being American, and you should be, too ... We are all the same. We are so lucky we can make for ourselves whatever we want to do."

Concluded Eisenstein: "Do not forget what happened to us. Do not let this happen again."

He received a standing ovation.