Hank Brodt Holocaust Memoirs: A Candle and a Promise

The troubling but ultimately triumphant memoirs of Holocaust survivor Hank Brodt.

A story of resilience, A Candle and a Promise makes the Holocaust memories of survivor Hank Brodt come alive. It offers a detailed historical account of being a Jewish teenager under the Nazi regime, shedding light on sickening truths in an honest, matter-of-fact way.

Hank Brodt (b. 1925) lived through one of the darkest periods of human history and survived the devastation of World War II. Born into a poor family in Boryslaw (Poland), he was placed in a Jewish orphanage. Losing his whole family when the Germans invaded Poland, he waged a daily battle to survive. Moving from forced labor camps to concentration camps, one of which features in Schindler’s List, his world behind the barbed wire consisted of quiet resistance, invisible tears and silent cries for years on end.

This story of survival includes rare photographs from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that powerfully illustrate these intimate and shocking memoirs. One recently discovered picture shows Hank Brodt in prison uniform removing the dead on carts at the liberated Ebensee concentration camp on May 7, 1945.

It is hard to believe that someone who endured such horrific events could go on to live a life of gratitude. Through his unwavering compassion towards others, Hank Brodt managed to keep his humanity and find a way to move forward.

After the Second World War, Hank Brodt testified at the trial of Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth in Dachau, Germany. He has joined the March of the Living since 2006, walking from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Yom Hashoah to pay tribute to the millions that died. Lighting the candle, he made a promise to himself to always answer the call to talk.

Hank Brodt’s Holocaust memoirs are a necessary reminder of one of the ugliest times in the history of human civilization.