Irene Zisblatt could barely be seen behind the podium, but her message rang loud and clear.
Jews and non-Jews alike gathered at UF Chabad in Gainesville Monday night to hear the testimony of one of the last living survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. The event was held in recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was last Saturday.
Zisblatt, 94, shared her trials through tears as she described her reality of being the sole survivor of her Hungarian family sent to the camp in 1944. She was just 14 years old at the time when her parents, four younger brothers and one younger sister were convinced by German Schutzstaffel soldiers to board a train they thought was bound for a nearby vineyard.
She first started sharing her survival story 50 years after the war ended. Zisblatt began speaking to students in 1994 through March of the Living, a program that brings thousands of students from all over the world to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She has gone back every year since.
“I feel that there is a pressing need to educate our generation and the future generations of the Holocaust and the evil that took place at that time in history,” Zisblatt said. “You must learn that genocide is possible anytime, anyplace.”
Zisblatt said the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 that claimed approximately 1,200 Israeli lives caused her Holocaust memories to flood back through her mind. She is able to draw a clear connection from the antisemitism of Nazi Germany to what is taking place 80 years later.
“Never again is now, so remember, do whatever you can wherever you are to fight hatred, because that's where it all begins,” Zisblatt said.
Zisblatt’s most captivating story centered around her mother gifting her four diamonds sewn into her skirt well before her family was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was instructed to use the diamonds to buy bread if she was ever hungry.
Zisblatt instead kept the diamonds and upon arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she swallowed them to avoid having them confiscated by German officers. She would retrieve them later on through defecation, a cycle she was forced to repeat as she was unable to store the diamonds elsewhere on a daily basis.
She was able to escape the camp by boarding a train traveling across tracks nearby the No. 3 gas chamber. Two years later, she was able to immigrate to the U.S. after learning her father had three brothers in the country.
Rabbi Berl Goldman of UF Chabad said over 450 people attended the event and estimated about three quarters of them were students.
“What she said and taught us tonight will hopefully have its desired effect of students and community members fighting hate, bigotry and antisemitism together, not remaining silent like so many did during World War II and the Holocaust,” Goldman said.
Dennis Durant, 77, looked at Zisblatt’s story as an opportunity for truth, citing a lack of understanding of the full scope of the holocaust among younger generations.
“To hear somebody that actually went through this experience where people are today trying to say that it never happened and diminish its importance…we need to keep a focus on what has happened to the Jewish people and build on from here,” Durant said.
Attendees were given the opportunity to ask Zisblatt questions following her 90-minute speech.
Daniel Lewis, a 23-year-old UF sports management senior, asked Zisblatt how she managed to keep her Jewish faith alive amid the atrocities she endured.
“In silence,” she said. “You weren’t allowed to speak in the camps. I wish to believe that [God] was there for me, and he was, because how did I get here?”
In an unexpected twist, Lewis drove Zisblatt five hours from Miami to Gainesville earlier Monday after she was unable to board her scheduled flight. Lewis was in Miami for a job interview and received a message from Goldman in a Chabad-wide group chat asking if anyone was planning on making the commute.
If not for Lewis, Zisblatt’s speaking engagement likely would have been postponed.
Lewis and Zisblatt talked for three-and-a-half hours straight before he called his mom, where the trio shared stories about Lewis’ own family members with holocaust connections.
“She's the most incredible woman I've ever met,” Lewis said. “I got very lucky to hear all of her stories and more.”
Not only did Zisblatt survive the camp, but she also lived to tell the horrific tales of Nazi physician Josef Mengele, who operated on her without anesthesia. Zisblatt said his intrusive experimentation left her unsure about her ability to reproduce.
Despite this, she was able to have two children, a son, Mark, and a daughter, Robin, after immigrating to New York and getting married. She is now a grandmother of five and a great-grandmother of one.
As for the diamonds?
Zisblatt smiles when she is asked what became of them. She glances down at a sparking necklace draped around her neck. Four diamonds shine brighter than ever against a teardrop pendant in emphatic defiance of the history and tragedy they have witnessed.
Zisblatt says she will pass the diamonds down to the first-born girl in her family and the necklace will remain a family heirloom, with one exception.
“They are never to be sold, never to be traded,” she said, “except God forbid they’re hungry — they are to buy bread.”
