Story out of New York City, New York:
The blue and grey stripes struck Jillian Eisman like a lightning bolt.
She was rummaging through a packed closet during a Long Island tag sale when she immediately recognized the symbol of horror and hate: A jacket worn by a prisoner at the Nazi Dachau concentration camp during The Second World War.
"I knew exactly what it was, even before I saw the numbers (84679 on the chest)," said Eisman, who purchased the jacket for $2 at the sale last year and donated it to the Kupferberg Holocaust Center in New York City.
Curators there not only put the jacket on display but also unearthed the story of the person who wore it: a teenager forced to make munitions for the German war effort, spent four years in a relocation camp and then came to America, never telling his children much about Dachau or that he kept the jacket.
The story of Benzion Peresecki - who later became Ben Peres - is told in extraordinary detail, thanks largely to the serial number and careful records he kept and that his daughter found long after he died.
"It was known to us that my father and grandmother had both been in the Holocaust," said Lorrie Zullo, who was 13 when her father died of a stroke in 1978. "We knew he had a brother who had been killed. But he did not talk about it much."
Holocaust historians say jackets such as the one saved by Peres are fairly rare, since most of the clothing worn by concentration camp prisoners was burned because of lice and other potential diseases. Also, most freed prisoners didn't want to keep reminders of their horrifying ordeal. Cont.
Story from - CTV News
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