MIAMI – There are about 38,000 Holocaust survivors in the US, with 3,000 in Florida, including a soon-to-be-100-year-old man named Jack Waksal. He shared his story of survival with CBS News Miami at the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial.
Waksal reflected on the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the miracle of his survival.
CBS News Miami first met Waksal as he walked down the lonely path at the memorial, looking for the names of his loved ones murdered in the Holocaust.
“I can never forget my life, my father and mother,” shared Waksal. “A good life I had with my brothers and sister all the time.”
Waksal says his entire family was killed in the Holocaust.
“So sorry that I survived and you didn’t,” said Waksal.
He was born in Poland in 1924. By the time he was 15, the Nazis invaded his hometown and forced his family into ghettos and then labor camps.
“If some survived, it was a miracle,” said Waksal.
Waksal describes the horrors of digging graves solely to watch the Nazis bury children alive.