“What If” Week at Esperanza High School concludes with visit from 94-year-old Holocaust survivor

Dr. Jacob Eisenbach, a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor, shared his story of perseverance wth the Esperanza Aztecs on Friday, December 15. Eisenbach, who grew up in a loving Jewish family in Łódź, Poland, was imprisoned for five years in three different concentration camps starting at the age of 16. Of the nearly 100 members of his extended family who were incarcerated by the Nazis, only three survived the Holocaust.

Mr. Eisenbach’s mother died one year before the war. His father was deported with 600 others and was never seen again. His brother, who was five years younger, was infected with typhus and sent to the gas chambers. His sister escaped, but was later caught and killed. His brother, who was two years younger, survived the Holocaust and joined the Polish army, but was found out as Jewish and killed.

Mr. Eisenbach’s address to the Aztecs culminated a week-long “What If” week at Esperanza High School. He says that he spoke to the Aztecs to “guard their precious minds against accepting ideas of hatred, discrimination, and intolerance because it was those ideas that resurrected to the murder of six million Jewish people.”

Thank Mr. Eisenbach for sharing your story of courage and survival with the Aztecs.