First Person: Conversations with Holocaust Survivors

When eight-year-old Emanuel “Manny” Mandel and his mother escaped German-occupied Budapest in summer 1944, their tense journey did not go as expected. Nazi and Hungarian authorities had begun deporting several thousand Jews per day to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. To save lives, leaders in the Jewish community negotiated with Nazi officials, initially hoping to suspend the deportations. 

They eventually reached a deal to send nearly 1,700 Jewish refugees, including Manny and his mother, to a neutral territory. Little did they know the Nazis would divert their train to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Submit a question for Manny during the live discussion on Wednesday, July 30, at 1 p.m. ET by signing into your YouTube or Gmail account.

Marking 25 years, First Person is a monthly, hour-long live interview between journalist Bill Benson and a Holocaust survivor on the Museum’s YouTube page, and it includes questions from the audience. This program is made possible through generous support from the Louis Franklin Smith Foundation.