Eighty-two year old Philip Gans began his presentation to the crowd that gathered in Mitchell Auditorium on Friday night with a simple request.

“When you go home tonight, cross the word hate out of your dictionary.”

USI students, faculty and community members were among the listeners to Gans’ story of survival during the mass extermination of Jews in World War II Europe in the Holocaust.

Gans and his family were forced into hiding when the Germans invaded Holland in 1940. Three years later in July 1943, they were arrested and sent to Westerbork Detention Camp, only to be relocated to Auschwitz Concentration Camp one month later in overcrowded box cars.

As soon as people stepped off the train at Auschwitz, they were separated into groups, one for laborers and one for those who would be sent to the gas chambers, Gans recalled.

When Gans stepped up, a Nazi guard hesitated but placed him in the worker line.

It was then that Gans became #139755 – not Philip, but a number.

He was then stripped of his belongings, given a striped prison suit and shaved.

Gans endured brutal living conditions in Auschwitz for two years, where the food rations were small, the drinking water was unsanitary and the work days were long.

Gans worked in constant fear of abuse by the camp guards.

“The Nazi soldiers never had a nice word for us,” Gans said. “They abused us physically and mentally. When I first arrived a very ugly man told me ‘You’ll never get out alive’,” he recalled.

In April of 1945, after 21 months, Gans was liberated from the Nazi camp.

He was 17 and the sole survivor of his family.

Sixty-five years later, Gans’ story of survival still caused strong reactions in some audience members.

“It’s so different from what you read or hear about,” freshman creative writing major Sky Simmons said. “It really gets you thinking, I’m sitting close to a piece of living history. It’s awesome.”

Gans ended his presentation with words of wisdom.

“Erase hate, don’t be a bystander, and never give up hope.”