Roald Hoffmann is a living, breathing time machine. And on January 27—International Holocaust Remembrance Day—he transported his Muller Chapel audience back in time to tell a story both personal and universal.
Invited regularly to Ithaca College to speak about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor, Hoffmann is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, published poet and playwright, emeritus professor at Cornell University, and grandfather of an IC graduate. He used photos, his personal recollections and reflections, and his great knowledge of history to keep his audience of students, faculty, staff, and local community members spellbound on a cold winter evening.
Holocaust Survivor Brings History to Life

Do the arithmetic from 1937: You will see that I am 87 years old, and given normal life expectancy there aren’t too many survivors left.
Roald Hoffmann
There was the 1938 photo of him as a one-year-old with his grandfather in his hometown of Złoczów—then part of eastern Poland and today part of western Ukraine. The photos of the schoolhouse where he hid from the Nazis in an attic and under floorboards for nearly two years. And the photos of his 2006 visit to Ukraine to meet with the descendants of Mykola and Maria Dyuk, the couple who courageously concealed him and several family members in that schoolhouse.
“Do the arithmetic from 1937: You will see that I am 87 years old, and given normal life expectancy there aren’t too many survivors left,” Hoffmann said. “I am in the last generation of ‘Hitler’s gift to America,’ which is one way to say it in the context of present immigration policy. We have contributed a lot to this country, and I want you to know that we came here on forged papers and documents. I and my family are very proud to be here and to have benefited from America’s gifts to us.”
Hoffmann was just four years old when Germany reneged on its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1941 and occupied all of Poland. He and his family and all the other Jews in town were subsequently rounded up by the Nazis and sent to forced-labor camps.

Julie Boden Adams, executive director of Hillel at Ithaca College, introduced Roald Hoffmann.
He and his mother were able to escape after a year and were taken in by the Dyuks, with three other relatives eventually joining them. His father was not so fortunate.
“He organized an attempt to break out as they saw that people were being shipped to extermination camps. One uncle who was in the forest in a partisan group smuggled weapons into the camp to prepare for the breakout. My father was betrayed by a fellow Jew, and in June 1943 he was arrested, tortured, and with another leader of the attempt was killed.”
The war—and the hiding—ended for Hoffmann in June 1944. While the Allied forces were storming the beaches of Normandy, the Soviet Red Army defeated the Nazis on the Eastern Front and liberated the area.
“There are ambiguities in our survival and in the war, but there are no ambiguities about the evil that was done to us by Nazi Germany. I think that I have sufficiently given witness,” he said in conclusion. “We must remember those times.”
As I get older, I see people who don’t understand the concept of something that actually happened. Having this firsthand account is how we make sure that this never happens again.
Julie Boden Adams, executive director of Hillel at Ithaca College
Julie Boden Adams, executive director of Hillel at Ithaca College, introduced Hoffmann and said afterwards that as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors herself she grew up learning firsthand about that time in history.
“As I get older, I see people who don’t understand the concept of something that actually happened,” said Adams. “Having this firsthand account is how we make sure that this never happens again. I know that there are a lot of feelings involved in the conflict that is going on right now [in Israel and Gaza], even within our Jewish population. But I think that leaning into Holocaust education and understanding what Jewish people had gone through during that time and how there are so many places where they went afterwards, including the state of Israel, it helps inform the conversation of today.”
Following his presentation, Hoffmann stayed in the chapel as a long line formed of people desiring to ask him questions individually, shake his hand, take a selfie, or simply give thanks. Students Ian Forman ’27 and Rachel Brody ’25 were among the last in line.
“The subject matter is so important,” said Forman. “I’ve heard other Holocaust survivors speak in the past and it is always very powerful. Especially because there aren’t many left, I would be disappointed in myself if I did not take advantage of this opportunity.”
“Being at the college has allowed me to reconnect with Judaism and my Jewish identity,” said Brody. “So especially getting the opportunity to be here in this place and connect with my history in a way that is so special and so unique—and so temporary, knowing that we don’t have a lot of time left for these opportunities—I wanted to take it in as much as I could, to be up close and say ‘Thank you.’”

Well-wishers lined up to speak with Roald Hoffmann after his presentation.
Once the final well-wisher had been warmly granted the gift of his time, Hoffmann explained why he continues to give these talks.
“We must tell the stories of the good that people did, possibly at the cost of their lives. The strength of those who hid us is very important. I hope that we never come to a time when something like that happens in America, but who knows? I would like to teach young people the value of saving lives and being good to others even when there is risk.
“If in these times of protests which frighten some members of the Jewish community on our college campuses, to give them some strength in these times, I think there is purpose in that too” he added. “So I’m glad to speak to a diverse audience yet about something recognizably Jewish and not to be afraid of it.”