'We live on': Holocaust survivors speak during menorah lighting

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11) -- The fifth night of Hanukkah is a time for celebration and also for remembrance. That’s because it’s also the 8th Annual International Holocaust Survivors’ Night.

As one of the largest menorahs in the world was lit in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza, there was singing, dancing, juggling, and jelly donuts.

And there were also solemn memories. Many in this crowd were remembering the Holocaust.

“My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. They went through hell and inferno that was Auschwitz and they survived,” Moshe Rosen, a Crown Heights resident, told PIX11 News. “They lost their original families but found new families and generations of us."

85-year-old Sami Steigmann arrived early to share with others his experiences during World War II. As an infant Sami was subjected to medical experiments at a labor camp. If it wasn’t for an anonymous German woman who snuck him milk, Steigmann says he would’ve died of starvation.

“If you ask a survivor, how come you’re alive they always say it was luck,” Steigmann, a motivational speaker born in 1939, told PIX11 News. “I was lucky that I was never separated from my family. I was subjected to medical experiments. The side effects I feel every single second of my life. The Holocaust must be taught forever and ever.”

The theme for the virtual 8th annual International Holocaust Survivors Night focused on how they inspire with strength, resilience, and hope, a message Rabbi Butman echoed.

“All of those millions of souls looking down from heaven are very proud that we can stand here in the center of the universe and be proud of our identities, something they went to the deaths for,” Rabbi Velvl Butman, of the  Lubavitch Youth Organization, told PIX11 News. “‘Am Yisrael Chai’, we’re here forever. We live on and the lights will continue shining brightly.”