In 2005, Reader's Corner had the privilege of welcoming author Samuel Pisar to the program. He was one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust, an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, a friend and admirer of Idaho Senator Frank Church and a world renowned international lawyer. Over the course of an hour – twice as long as the interview was scheduled to last – Dr. Pisar shared stories from his extraordinary life, including how he survived the Nazi death camps and finally managed to escape.
What he had to say was riveting and we are pleased to share it with our listeners again.
Samuel Pisar died last month in New York at the age of 86. He was born in Poland in 1929, and was only 10 when the Nazis invaded. He was sent to Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz and Dachau, and through ingenuity, ruthlessness and luck he managed to survive and ultimately escape. Pisar tells this searing story in his 1979 memoir, “Of Blood and Hope.”
This weekend, as we mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, it’s particularly fitting that we air this interview part one of two with Samuel Pisar. I spoke with him on the Boise State campus, where he was visiting as a featured speaker at the university’s Frank Church Conference on Public Affairs.
