Holocaust Survivor Meets Soldier Who Helped Liberate Him 80 Years Later

Andrew Roth was born in Peneszlek, Hungary, in 1927. During World War II, he lived in a ghetto for European Jews, before being sent to Auschwitz.

Against all odds, he survived the death camp. He was eventually brought to Buchenwald, another concentration camp in Germany.

Jack Moran was born in 1925 and was serving in the U.S. Army when he helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. Prior to that, he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where he watched several of his best friends die.

Both men were still in their teens when they were going through the war.

Recently, the pair, both of whom are approaching 100 years old, met to share their stories with the USC Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with Holocaust survivors.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis killed nearly six million Jews.

As of 2025, there are more than 220,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide.

Today, there are fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses still alive to share their stories, and the memories of those who remain are gradually fading with time.

Rob Williams, CEO of the USC Shoah Foundation and a Holocaust historian, noted that “very few members of the survivor generation are still with us.”

He said that while the Holocaust has been well documented, many parts of that period are still unknown.

The stories for remaining Holocaust survivors can help fill these unexplored gaps.

Death Came So Easy

Moran was 17 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army. In 1944, he was sent to the battlefields of Western Europe.

He recalls seeing “many nice young fellows” lying in the woods of Germany and snow of Belgium with “their lives cut short.”

In one subsequent battle, he saw four of his best friends die in front of his eyes.

During the brutal winter of 1944–1945, Moran was stranded for days in a frozen foxhole during the Battle of the Bulge, surrounded by German troops and without any food.

Fortunately, he was able to survive by melting the snow for water.

He later recalled seeing grown men “crying like babies”, saying they couldn’t take it anymore, and he felt the same way. But there was no choice, they had to keep going.

As the U.S. Army advanced into Germany, they came across boxcars filled with hundreds of suitcases. They were belongings that had been confiscated by the Nazis from Jewish families before they were deported to ghettos and concentration camps.

Surviving Due to Luck

In 1944, Andrew Roth and his family were forcilbly taken by the Nazis and brought to a ghetto in Satu-Mare.

After spending several months there, they were deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In total, around one million Jews were murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Once they arrived at Auschwitz, he was told to go to the right line along his mother and siblings while his uncle and cousin were sent to the left.

Without thinking, however, he followed his uncle. He later found out that everyone sent to the right was brought to the gas chambers and killed the same night.

As the Soviet army approached, Roth and the other inmates at Auschqitz were sent to another concentration camp, Buchwald.

Roth said that surviving at the Buchenwald concentration camp meant enduring relentless hunger and freezing cold. At one point, he even risked his life to steal dog food – the same food given to the camp’s guard dogs.

By April 1945, as the Nazi regime collapsed, the guards began to flee and inmates started taking control of the camp.

The U.S. Army arrived shortly after and liberated the area, finding more than 21,000 prisoners still inside.

Following the war, both Roth and Moran settled in California.