IC News

Samuel Rind was just two years old when the Second World War broke out in September 1939. Shortly after, when the Germans invaded Poland, his family fled their hometown, living in various ghettos and forced labor camps.

“We made many stops,” said Rind. “But then we got caught, we got put in the back of a truck, and taken to a concentration camp.”

Rind was talking to a room of close to 200 students, faculty, and staff in Ithaca College’s Emerson Suites on February 1. An animated and lively speaker, Rind has been sharing his personal experiences as a Holocaust survivor for a quarter century.

“I want to speak to the entire world. I want to speak to those who are interested and to those who don't give a hoot,” he said prior to the event.

“I am Jewish, and growing up, I heard a lot of survivor stories through my synagogue, but I haven't heard one in a few years. I always want to take advantage of these opportunities, because each story is so unique and important.” said E.G. Wusinich ’27, who remarked that he was impressed by Rind’s passion, forthrightness, and fighting spirit. “I was crying during it.”

“I heard a lot from people in the audience about their amazement at his spark of life. That and the resilience that he clearly still has,” said Lauren Goldberg, executive director of Hillel at IC. “The Jewish community is struggling right now. Seeing so much support and allyship means a lot.”

Like most survivors still alive today who were children during the Holocaust, Rind’s stories rely largely on the recollections of other adults — in his case, his mother. His father and younger brother — along with many uncles, aunts, and cousins — did not survive.

His 2017 memoir, which chronicles his life during and after the Holocaust, is entitled A Tribute to Mom, We Survived Together. He credits his mother with saving his life and enabling him to make it through those horrific times. The depth of his love and respect for her, and the strength of their bond, was evident throughout Rind’s talk. He teared up as he described how she took care of him as a child.

“What a wonderful human being she was,” he said. “She was a very, very smart woman.”

Later in life, his mother lived in a Jewish home near Rind and his family in Rochester. Rind visited her twice a day every day during her 12 years there. “Before I know it, her neighbors started complaining to me that they don’t understand why their kids don’t see them as much as I see my mother!” he said.

The sacrifices of others and extent to which they contributed to survivors’ protection is a consistent element in the narratives of survivors like Rind according to Goldberg, who has been bringing Holocaust speakers to IC for many years. Rind had made a previous visit to IC to speak in 2017.  

“Because these were all children, a recurring theme is the role of their parents in saving their lives and how critical that relationship is,” said Goldberg. “One of the most salient pieces of Sam's story was his connection with his mother.”

Sophomore Lee Kreshtool concurred. “What was most meaningful to me was his relationship with his mother. The fact that he brought her up so many times, it was just beautiful to hear,” she said.

Kreshtool, who also went to last year’s Holocaust survivor talk, attended the event with Matt Viscardi ’25, who was at his first.

“I knew that was something I didn't want to miss out on,” said Viscardi. “You can read every textbook on the matter, but you're always going to get more out of hearing from someone who was actually there.”

“There's nothing like the experience of being in a room with somebody and breathing the same air and witnessing their story,” said Goldberg. “The time that we have left with survivors is limited. Once the last survivor is no longer with us, their transmission of their stories to the next generation of people who will be able to stand up and say, ‘I know that this is true, because I stood with a survivor, I sat with a survivor, I heard from a survivor,’ is critically important.”

While Rind and his mother escaped the forced labor camp with the help of a Jewish resistance fighter and were ultimately liberated, his story was complex and harrowing. He described constant and extreme hardships, such as when his family, desperately hungry, offered to trade an 18-karat-gold ring with people on the other side of the camp fence in exchange for food. All they received in return was a single potato.

Rind also vividly recalls witnessing the brutal killing of his brother in 1942—so traumatic it remains etched on his memory. He describes that day as “the end of my childhood.” No one knew the exact circumstances surrounding the death of his father that same year after he failed to return following a trip to retrieve supplies from a cache that the family had hidden before leaving their homes.