Born in Hungary in 1930, George Scott (originally Spiegel) was a teenager when the Nazis transported him to the Sarvar concentration camp and later to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. Although he survived the Holocaust, he lost five of his mother’s six sisters and all of their children and husbands, as well as his grandparents, who had raised him after his father died when he was only a year old. With aid from the Canadian Jewish Congress and other agencies that assisted child survivors, he made his way to Canada in 1948. After meeting Shlomit in 2008, full of zest for life and appreciation for what he had, he inspired her to collect writings from Holocaust survivors and was the first person to contribute pieces for Marking Humanity.

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The Jewish Tribune included mention of this event in a recent article.

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John was born in Czechoslovakia in June 1930. In 1942 the Nazis transported his family to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, and at the end of 1943, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in Poland. He ended up being one of about 35 boys who survived the camp, but he found only an aunt from his father’s side still alive when he returned to his hometown.

Click here to download / listen to the interview (Length: 1 hour)

The survivors moved the audience with their stories and as they read their pieces from the book. Shlomit then shared her thoughts and research in relation to what people can learn from the survivors and the Holocaust, as well as how some of the core issues that played a role during that dark period in history are relevant in people’s own communities today. She emphasized that every person helps to shape the world and everyone can work on bettering themselves and their communities.