[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 24 (Monday, February 7, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E119]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING THE LIFE OF MEL MERMELSTEIN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALAN S. LOWENTHAL

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, February 7, 2022

  Mr. LOWENTHAL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to reflect on and honor 
the life of Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, 
later a U.S. immigrant who served our country in the Korean War, a 
pioneering voice in the legal fight against Holocaust denialism, and a 
proud champion and teacher of Holocaust education and remembrance.
  Mermelstein died January 28, 2022, at his home in Long Beach, 
California. He was 95.
  Mermelstein was born in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia on September 25, 
1926. His hometown was later occupied by the Hungarians and is 
currently part of the Ukraine. Mermelstein was 17 years old in 1944 
when the Nazis rounded him up along with other Jews who had been 
stripped of their homes, denied education and were relegated to 
ghettos. They were transported by cattle car to the infamous Nazi camp, 
Auschwitz, in German-occupied Poland.
  Mermelstein later recounted in numerous interviews, that upon 
arrival, his mother who was helping a woman with three or four small 
children, was immediately ushered to the gas chamber line. His two 
sisters who had been selected for slave labor, ran to be at their 
mother's side. They all perished that day in the Nazi death factory. 
Thereafter, his father and brother were also senselessly murdered by 
the Nazis, leaving Mel the sole survivor of his immediate family.
  During his internment at Auschwitz, Mermelstein was forced by the 
Nazis to work as slave labor. In January 1945, as Soviet Troops 
advanced, the Nazis began mass executions and evacuations of prisoners 
from Auschwitz. Mermelstein was forced to march on foot for three weeks 
in the bitter snow in what has come to be known as the death marches. 
After surviving the 155-mile forced march to Gross-Rosen concentration 
camp, he was packed onto a train and sent to Buchenwald, another Nazi 
concentration camp.
  On April 11, 1945, U.S. forces liberated Mermelstein and the other 
surviving Jews from Buchenwald. Upon liberation, Mermelstein was 18 
years old and weighed 68 pounds. He remained in the camp while the Red 
Cross offered medical care and aid. After approximately three months, 
he returned to Mukachevo. With his entire family murdered and his 
family home occupied, Mermelstein made a decision to begin a new life 
in the country that had liberated him from hell.
  Mermelstein knew he had an uncle and aunt in New York. Although he 
did not speak English at the time, Mermelstein immigrated to the U.S. 
through Ellis Island in 1946, where he eventually became a naturalized 
citizen. In 1950, Mermelstein was drafted into the U.S. Army. Although 
he was given the ability to forgo service, he proudly served in the 
American armed forces. After his initial training, and because of his 
extensive linguistic abilities including seven languages, he was 
selected to work Army intelligence during the Korean War. He later 
worked as a translator at the United Nations.
  After his service to this country, Mermelstein began to pen his 
experiences in the Nazi camps in his memoir, ``By Bread Alone.'' In 
1960, Mermelstein met his wife, Emma Jane Nance, then a schoolteacher 
in New York. The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1961 to start their 
family. Mermelstein set-up and ran a successful manufacturing company 
that made wooden pallets. He went on to employ generations of workers, 
including his yard manager that Mermelstein employed for 55 years.
  While running a successful business, Mermelstein, deeply scarred and 
traumatized by his experiences in the Nazi death camps, began traveling 
back to Auschwitz and other surrounding concentration camps. In 1967, 
with the advent of the Six-Day War, the conflict between Israel and 
seven Arab states, Mermelstein was compelled to make sure evidence of 
what happened to his family and to the millions of other Jews at the 
hands of the Nazis was not buried or destroyed.
  Hearing the rising number of threats being made against Jews and 
committed to the promise he made to his father, Mermelstein life's work 
became to ensure that the world would never forget. He spoke to 
classrooms and school assemblies educating students and teachers of the 
atrocities he experienced as a teen, warning against man's inhumanity 
to man. He accompanied students to Auschwitz and spread a message of 
hope, peace, resilience and reconciliation. His focus was on 
intellectual curiosity and what can be learned from such a dark period 
in history. He lives on as an inspiration to many.
  In the late 70's Mermelstein actively debated Holocaust deniers on 
the radio and television. In 1980, a Holocaust denier organization 
claimed the planned extermination of Jews by the Nazis was a myth and 
offered a reward publicizing it in Jewish newspapers. Mermelstein was 
incensed and wrote a letter to the editors of various newspapers who 
published the advertisement expressing his disgust. The Holocaust 
denier organization turned its focus to Mermelstein and challenged 
Mermelstein to prove that Jews were gassed in gas chambers at 
Auschwitz. The Institute for Historical Review, a known hate group 
``offered a $50,000 award to prove Jews were gassed at Auschwitz,'' 
recounted William Cox, a Long Beach attorney. Cox was so moved after 
reading Mermelstein's memoir, ``By Bread Alone,'' he offered to 
represent Mermelstein to take on the so-called revisionists pro bono.
  In 1981, in the Mermelstein v. IHR case, Los Angeles Superior Court 
Judge Thomas T. Johnson took judicial notice of the fact that Jews were 
gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz. The ruling was a ``personal 
vindication'' for Mermelstein, his attorney Cox recounted. In 1985, the 
IHR and Mermelstein reached a settlement agreement, and Mermelstein 
received a damage award and a letter of apology from the organization. 
This became the subject of the movie ``Never Forget,'' starring Leonard 
Nimoy.
  Over five decades, Mermelstein returned to Auschwitz and surrounding 
death camps obtaining artifacts and other items. Mermelstein processed 
his trauma and pain creating pieces for display in an exhibit which was 
formerly housed on his business property. Tens of thousands of students 
toured his exhibit for free over the decades. Currently, Mermelstein's 
extensive collection of artifacts is being curated for permanent 
display. Among the physical reminders of the Holocaust he collected are 
uniforms worn by inmates, pieces of barbed-wire fence and even parts of 
a Jewish prayer book found buried near an incinerator.
  In a collaboration between the Auschwitz Study Foundation (a non-
profit founded by Mermelstein in 1978) and the Chabad Jewish Center in 
Newport Beach--the Orange County Holocaust Education Center will house 
Mermelstein's collection for access by students, teachers and the 
public. A documentary based on his life, ``Live to Tell'' is slated for 
release later this year.
  Mermelstein is survived by his wife, Jane Mermelstein; his children, 
Bernie, Edie, Ken and David; five grandchildren and one great-
grandchild.

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