Ben Stern

Ben Stern (September 21, 1921 – February 28, 2024) was a Polish-born Jewish Holocaust survivor, activist, and author.

Early life Bendet Sztern was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1921, the second youngest of his parents' eventual nine children. In 1928, at the age of 7, his family moved to Mogielnica, Poland, where his father studied religious texts and his mother managed their family's liquor store. Stern attended public school.

In September 1933, fearing he would be seized when Germany invaded Poland, he left by train for Soviet-occupied Poland. on to the Warsaw Ghetto where his father died in 1942. On August 15, 1942, Stern was separated from his family. While he was sent to the Majdanek concentration camp, where his assignment was to wash potatoes,

On May 3, 1945, Stern was liberated by the United States Army. in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp following the end of the war; the two married six weeks later.

Personal life In 1946, he emigrated to Chicago, Illinois in the United States with his wife, where he worked as a carpenter and then founded a laundry business.

In 2008, he moved to Berkeley, California. In 2017, Stern, then 95, received coverage after becoming roommates with the granddaughter of a Nazi, who was studying for her master's degree in Jewish Studies at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union.

Stern had two daughters and one son.

Activism In 1977, Ben Stern worked to prevent the neo-Nazi Socialist Party of America from marching in Skokie, Illinois, by leading a small group of Holocaust survivors in a public battle to prevent the march. He collected 750,000 signatures opposing the Nazi march and rallied 60,000 Jews and Christians who planned to show up at the march in a counter-demonstration. The mayor of Skokie advised the Nazis that he would not be able to guarantee their safety and the demonstration was canceled.

In 2019, Stern spoke at a protest against ICE in San Francisco.

Writing Ben Stern co-authored his memoir, Near Normal Man: Survival with Courage, Kindness, and Hope, with his daughter, Charlene Stern. The memoir took its name from a 2017 documentary Charlene made about her father, titled, Near Normal Man.