Holocaust survivor speaks to Kingston, Ont. students, shares message to stay away from hate

To honour Holocaust Remembrance Day, some Kingston, Ont., high school students had the chance to hear from a survivor.

At the age of 15, David Moskovic was separated from his family and sent to a concentration camp. His message to students was one of kindness, acceptance and understanding of others.

You could hear a pin drop as Moskovic’s story was told.

“They came and took us away and of course I lost my family and I had to start from scratch on my own,” said Moskovic.

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Students watched a documentary of Moskovic’s story detailing his time at Auschwitz, laying bricks at Buna, a camp outside of Auschwitz, and eventually meeting American soldiers at the liberation of Buchenwald, another German concentration camp.

At the time, he was too weak to even stand.

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“My mom and my sister were the lucky ones; they went to the gas chamber the day they got there so they didn’t suffer. But the people who went to the camps they suffered a horrible suffering,” said the 92-year-old Moskovic.

“He teaches people to be kind and to love each other and I think that by educating people we can kind of stay away from hate and just love and accept each other,” said Samanntha Springer a Grade 10 student at Loyalist Collegiate.

Springer was the student organizer of the event and says she hopes her peers are able to learn from the stories of the past. Moskovic says as he watches the war in Ukraine, he’s glad the world is helping that country’s most vulnerable.

“Today, Ukraine — the whole world is helping them, every country is letting them in, which unfortunately when I was in that problem, nobody wanted us,” Moskovic said.

“No country would take us in or help us.”

Moskovic moved to Canada after the war and settled in Ottawa where he worked as a plumber and raised a family. He has three children and eight grandchildren and helps others when he can, having helped two Syrian families settle in Canada a few years ago.

“For all the things I went through in my life, life is beautiful,” said Moskovic.

“I never knew life could be that beautiful.”

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