Mel Mermelstein (1926–2022)

Moric "Mel" Mermelstein was born in Örösveg, near Munkács, Czechoslovakia, later annexed by Hungary (now Mukachevo, Ukraine), the son of Fani and Herman-Bernad Mermelstein, a winemaker. He was 17 years old in 1944 when Nazi Germany invaded in World War II and his family was deported to the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. His parents and two sisters died there, and his brother was shot trying to escape a death march. In January 1945, Mel also was sent on a death march with 3,200 other prisoners to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. From there, he was sent on a train without food or water to Buchenwald, where he arrived stricken with typhus, with his body withered to only 68 pounds. He survived two months at Buchenwald until the camp was liberated by U.S. troops in April 1945. In 1946, he emigrated to the USA, staying with relatives in New York. He was drafted in 1950 during the Korean War and served in military intelligence. Because he spoke seven languages, he was hired after the war by the United Nations as a translator. Mermelstein married Jane Nance, with whom he had four children and settled in Long Beach, California. There he started a company that manufactured wooden shipping pallets. Mermelstein had promised his father he would bear public witness to the Nazi atrocities. He traveled to Auschwitz frequently and brought back hundreds of artifacts that he put into a museum called the Auschwitz Study Foundation, which opened in 1972. He spoke at schools, synagogues, and community groups. He told his story in a memoir first published in 1979, By Bread Alone: The Story of A-4685. The following year, the Institute for Historical Review
(IHR), a group of Holocaust deniers, promised a $50,000 reward to anyone who could prove that Jews were murdered by gas at Auschwitz. Mermelstein submitted a notarized account of witnessing Nazi guards herding his mother, sisters, and others towards a gas chamber. The IHR refused to pay, saying Mermelstein's account was insufficient proof. Mermelstein hired a lawyer and sued the IHR in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Judge Robert A. Wenke would not allow any evidence claiming the Holocaust never happened. In 1985, a settlement was reached in which the IHR agreed to pay Mermelstein the $50,000 reward plus an additional $40,000, and to issue a letter of apology.
He was portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in a 1991 television film about the case, Never Forget.