LOS ANGELES — On a recent afternoon, 96-year-old Frank Shatz was visiting the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles. But as a Holocaust survivor, Shatz didn’t need to read about Nazi occupation in Europe, he lived it.
“I am already the converted one. I don’t need to see it. I know it,” he said.
Shatz grew up in Hungary and his family was persecuted. He was sent to a labor camp, but was able to escape.
Shatz went on to join the Hungarian underground resistance movement. After the war ended, he moved to Prague and eventually Virginia in the U.S.
He has had a long career in journalism and continues to write a column for The Virginia Gazette.
Shatz was in Los Angeles visiting his niece, Erika Fabian, a fellow Holocaust survivor.
He also met with Dr. George Berci, another survivor who was in the Hungarian underground anti-Nazi resistance movement after escaping a labor camp. Shatz said he continues to share his story in order to keep alive the memory of the atrocities that occurred.
“My first priority is to teach young people history, and that if you don’t learn from it, history can repeat itself. People always say, never again. … If we don’t remember what can happen, it can happen again,” Shatz said.