Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and remembering the millions of victims who died during the Holocaust.

David Wolnerman was the last known Holocaust survivor in Des Moines. He died in 2023, but his son, Michael, remembers the stories he told about his time in Auschwitz. “We’re on this earth to live, and that’s the point to why my parents survived, I believe, so that they can demonstrate to me and my family how we should live and how we should act, and how we should appreciate what we have given to us,” he says.

Wolnerman says his parents told him education was the key to survival. “The stories have to be told, with the warts, or even if they’re shiny and wonderful. Your story, my story, those stories have to continue. That’s the fiber of our country, and if we don’t know that, then we better wake up,” Wolnerman says.

Wolnerman says acknowledging how the Holocaust is a part of his history helps him understand what it means to not just survive, but to live.

(By Lucia Cheng, Iowa Public Radio)

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