Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette photos Holocaust survivor Jack Sittsamer, a native of Mielec, Poland, waits for eighth-graders to arrive in the auditorium at Carson Middle School, where he spoke about his harrowing experiences during World War II. He was 17 in 1942 when he saw Nazis shoot and kill his father. Mr. Sittsamer is a volunteer for the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh.

By Marylynne Pitz
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette On wintry nights in a German concentration camp, a hungry teenager named Jack Sittsamer left his hard, wooden bunk, crept into the dark and risked his life just to steal a few potatoes from a warehouse in the compound.

Back in bed, the native of Poland often dreamt of sitting at a table with an entire loaf of bread and eating as many pieces as he wished.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Jack Sittsamer talks to eighth-graders at Carson Middle School about his experinces during World War II. Click photo for larger image. Previous stories Jefferson Awards: She finds lessons of life in helping the dying Jefferson Awards: Two young men give back to group that saved them Jefferson Awards: Volunteer's efforts showed HEARTH's flame of hope Woman sends boxes of cheer to military

"Before you went to sleep, they gave you a slice of bread, and you were supposed to eat it the next morning. But you were so hungry, you ate it that night," said Mr. Sittsamer. After a terrifying odyssey through six concentration camps, he weighed 72 pounds when he was liberated in 1945.

For the past 19 years, the Squirrel Hill man has spoken in classrooms and auditoriums full of students and teachers, handing out substantive slices of his life story in the hope that the lessons will rise like yeast in people's minds.

"My survival is luck, plain luck," said the 82-year-old, whose voice retains a slight European accent. "There were a lot of times in my life when I was ready to give up."

But because his life's lodestars have been persistence and a remarkable willingness to recount his experiences to more than 100,000 people, Mr. Sittsamer is one of seven local individuals tapped for the prestigious 2006 Jefferson Award for Public Service. At a dinner on Jan. 25 in Carnegie Music Hall, PNC Foundation will provide a $1,000 donation to his charity, the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh.

During the 1980s, Barbara Burstin, a Holocaust educator, encouraged a reluctant Mr. Sittsamer to tell his story. Now the president of a group of 150 local Holocaust survivors, Mr. Sittsamer has relived these painful experiences so that young people can hear a vivid, personal account of one man's travail and triumph.

"He has performed a tremendous service," Dr. Burstin said. Survivors are "not just witnesses to history. It's the fact that they are able to still talk about justice and optimism and personal commitment and be upbeat after such a tragedy. That combination is extraordinary."

Mr. Sittsamer's memories of the extreme deprivation he endured during the war spurred him to volunteer for 19 years with the Jewish Assistance Fund, as a board member and trustee. Each week, he assists the agency in distributing financial aid to people who need to pay for food, clothing, shelter, education and medical expenses. He regularly telephones fellow survivors and visits them at their homes or in hospitals.

During his ordeal, Mr. Sittsamer held on to the hope that his eldest brother, Israel, would look for him after the war. But he is the sole survivor of a six-member family -- his father, Moses; his mother, Perla; another brother, Josef; and two sisters, Devora and Gitla.

As a boy growing up during the 1930s, he liked to ride his bike and play soccer. He lived in Mielec, a community in south-central Poland with 5,000 Jews, 10,000 Catholics and no shortage of anti-Semitism.

"There were no public schools," he said, adding that on winter days, Jewish children sat in the back of a classroom while a priest taught catechism to Catholic children. "The priest pointed to us and said, 'They killed Jesus.' "

After his regular schooling, Mr. Sittsamer studied Hebrew in the afternoon. His father, a devout Orthodox Jew, earned a living as a traveling salesman of Singer sewing machines but came home every Thursday to celebrate the Sabbath.

Invasion of Poland

When Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, the Nazis stormed into Mielec on Sept. 7 and set fire to all three synagogues. Jews praying inside burned to death while those fleeing the flames were shot.

The Nazis forced Mr. Sittsamer and his eldest brother, Israel, to work six days a week for 12-hour days building roads, bridges and dams. But the family still lived in their own home.

Then, early on a March morning in 1942, the Nazis knocked down his family's door and chased all of them to the town's market square. Under heavy guard, all of the town's Jews were marched seven miles to an airplane hangar. Mr. Sittsamer's father, a World War I veteran with arm and leg wounds, could not keep up and was shot to death before his family's eyes. Another 299 people who could not keep up during the march were shot, too.

At the airplane hangar, older men, women and children were separated from younger men.

"That's the last time I saw my family. My brother Israel was sent to Pustkow. My mother, younger brother and two sisters were sent to Belzec," a camp in eastern Poland where they were murdered.

Mr. Sittsamer spent the next two years building airplanes and sleeping in a camp studded with guard towers and a double electric fence, just a few miles from his hometown.

"We were political prisoners," he said, pulling up his jacket sleeve to reveal the blue K and L tattooed on his wrist. The letters stood for the camp's name, Koncentration Lager.

In June 1944, Mr. Sittsamer boarded a cattle car and traveled 80 miles to Wieliczka, Poland, to make airplane parts in the underground salt mines for six weeks.

Then he rode another cattle car to the gates of Auschwitz. For three days, the prisoners sweltered in crowded rail cars with no food, water or sanitation. Many died or were trampled to death. Finally, the train moved again, and the prisoners arrived in Flossenburg, a concentration camp in Germany.

As they entered the camp, Mr. Sittsamer recalled, "We could see the chimneys [of the gas chambers]. We could see a mountain of shoes. We thought, 'Oh my God, our shoes are going to be there next.' "

Eventually, he landed in Mauthausen, Austria, one of the worst death camps. For 12 hours a day, he carried heavy rocks, one on each shoulder, up and down 186 steps. The stones were used to build large homes.

"People were dropping like flies. If you didn't fall down, the guards would push you down," he said.

Freedom at last

Two months later he was sent to Gusen II, a sub camp of Mauthausen, to work in an underground airplane factory. Overhead, he could hear the Allies' planes bombing.

On May 5, 1945, he awoke at 5 a.m. to find that all the Germans were gone. A Jeep full of American soldiers happened by and told prisoners they were free.

"We just couldn't believe we were free. We had a feeling we were going to be killed if we went out the main gate," Mr. Sittsamer said, adding that the Germans often told prisoners they would never be liberated.

So, he and his buddy, Arthur Vogel, tunneled through the camp's double fence to freedom.

Mr. Sittsamer found refuge in Eggenfelden, Germany, where he lived until July 1949, when the United Jewish Federation sponsored him so he could immigrate to the United States.

After sailing to Boston, he traveled to Pittsburgh. He learned to speak English during night classes at Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill. He married Maxine Feldman and made a living for 38 years as a sheet metal worker at Tyson Metal Products in the East End until his retirement in 1986.

His daughter, Paula Riemer, lives in Pittsburgh, and his son, Murray, lives in Michigan. He has five grandchildren, one of whom will celebrate her bat mitzvah this month.

Despite misgivings, Mr. Sittsamer returned to Poland in May 2000 on a trip sponsored by the Holocaust Center. Along with 33 travelers, he visited five concentration camps.

But his goal was to find the mass grave where his father was buried. He found it in a field far from a main road near Mielec. A tall, stone marker was enclosed by a wrought-iron fence and the entrance padlocked. Undeterred, he climbed over it and lit two candles.

For the first time in his life, Mr. Sittsamer prayed the mourner's Kaddish at the mass grave that held his father's remains and 299 other Jews.

"I told the group that I had something to say to my father and that it would be very emotional. I told him ... how much I missed him when he was taken away from me. I told him that my mother, Perla, my brothers, Israel and Josef, and my sisters, Devora and Gitla, had also been taken away from me.

"I told him that I have a wonderful wife who had given me two beautiful children, Paula, who was named for my mother, and Murray, who was named for him. I also told him that he has five super, loving great-grandchildren who I am very proud of and love very much. I told him to rest in peace."

When he finished, his companions' eyes were wet with tears.

Last of the series tomorrow: Esther Hoegle