#1: A conversation with Ret. Lt. Col. Charles Stein, Holocaust survivor & WWII Veteran - Part 1

Like Me

Welcome to 'Like Me', where I will have conversations with survivors and descendants of genocide from around the world. I'm your host, Joshua Stein. I am the paternal grandson of a late Holocaust survivor.

The more I learn and see how present the very same hatred that my grandfather fled from is in our global society today, the more difficult it is to stay silent one day longer. I am beginning this project to honor the memory of my grandfather, Charles Robert Stein. He was born Karl to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria on November 28th, 1919. His father was a printer and mother a seamstress. In 1937, Charles was admitted to the Medical School of the University of Vienna. When the Germans marched onto Austria and arrived in Vienna on March 13th, 1938, Jews were no longer permitted to study at the University, and Charles began to search for a way to get out of Austria, now a part of Nazi Germany. By August 1938, he had found a way to leave, and on August 12th he said his last goodbye to his parents and fled to Luxembourg. He was 18 years old.

This episode is the first of three segments from a conversation with Charles from June 3rd, 2012 at his home in Springfield, Virginia. At the time, he was 92 years old and I was 17.