Students listened with rapt attention at the Lewis Family Auditorium and Middle School gymnasium as Eisenstein and Mermelstein shared their stories of survival amid the Holocaust's horrors.

Mermelstein recalled graphic details of his terrifying experience: spending two days locked in a dark cattle car with more than 100 others; being separated from his parents, two brothers and a sister, who died at Auschwitz; watching fellow Jews electrocuted; eating coal to survive; and staring at piles of bodies piled high until American tanks rolled in at the end of the war.

"When I saw the tanks come in, and they came closer, and I saw the American flag, I can't tell you the happiness and the joy I felt to see the American flag," Mermelstein said. "To this day, when I see people burning the American flag, it hurts ... This is the best country in the world."

Parents, students and members of the community at large attended the evening event at Swenson Hall, which was covered by WSVN-Channel 7. Gross shared both his tragic story and indomitable spirit; Rabbi Sholom Dovber Lipskar, who was smuggled in a suitcase as a baby over the Soviet border by Holocaust survivors, also spoke.

"In spite of the horrors and suffering I endured," Gross said, "I feel I'm one of the luckiest men in the world to be still alive."

Faculty members Gila Aloni and Paul Elkins made arrangements for the events along with Head of the Middle School Rachel Rodriguez and Assistant Head of the Middle School Shelly Stamler.