CALISTOGA – Northern California Holocaust survivor Nick Hope turned 100 years old on Sunday.
Hope, surrounded by friends and family, hosted a birthday party in his hometown of Calistoga to celebrate living one century.
“I don’t feel that I’m 100,” Hope said Sunday.
CBS13 first shared Hope’s full story in a three-part series that aired in May 2024, titled “What Hope can do.”
Though his birthday was filled with smiles, there were many days of Hope’s life that were darker. On some, he did not even know if he would make it to the next morning, let alone decades more.
“How did I get through this horrible, terrible hell to 100 years?” said Hope.
Just a child, Hope survived the Holodomor, a forced famine on the Ukrainian people that claimed millions of lives.
Then as a teenager, Hope was imprisoned at Dachau concentration camp in Germany for more than two years.
“No more man. Not a name. Zero. When you step in, you are a dead man,” said Hope.