Ernest Gross was born in July 1929 in Turc, Romania and he did not have a good life. When he was seven, his father and aunt went to Argentina to make money and return to open a business. His father asked if he would remember him when he returned, and Gross said yes. His father returned when he was 11 and he could not recognize who was who. Gross felt this was his first rejection in life. School was hard because he was Jewish, and the teacher did not like Jews. Most students ignored him. He would bring a kosher lunch but often students would rub ham and bacon on his lips which shamed him. He never shared this with his family. He went to a synagogue and someone called him the boy who never laughs. [Annotator's Note: Gross pauses at this.] He had three older brothers, so all of his clothes were hand-me-downs and never fit him. He grew up a very unhappy person. 15 April 1944 was a Saturday and Passover. They were out of matzoh, so his mother woke him up early to help her make bread. There was a knock on the door. He opened the door and there were two Hungarian police. The policemen said to wake everyone up and be in the synagogue in an hour, put all of their money and jewelry on the table and do not lock the door. They were shocked. Turc had no electricity or plumbing and was isolated from the world in general. Gross had not known of Kristallnacht [Annotator's Note: Night of Broken Glass; November Pogrom; 9 to 10 November 1938] and had not known the Germans were losing the war in Russia in 1942.

Ernest Gross was 15 years old when he and his family were ordered from their home by Hungarian police. They were ordered to the synagogue and they saw Jewish people coming in from all directions. Once they were inside, the doors and windows were locked, and people used the bathroom inside. There was little air and it smelled bad. On the third day, the doors were opened to reveal horse and wagons lined up outside. Ordered to board the wagons, they were told if they jumped out, they would be shot. They were taken to [Annotator's Note: unintelligible] Hungary to empty houses of Jews who had already been taken to Auschwitz [Annotator's Note: Auschwitz, a complex of over 40 concentration camps and extermination camps in German-occupied Poland]. There were three to four families per house for three weeks. A train with cattle cars arrived and as many people as possible were crammed in with only a bucket for bathroom use. This was awful for the girls and women. He does not recall how long it took to arrive in Auschwitz. The Germans ordered them off and told them to leave behind any personal belongings. Gross's parents were far ahead of him, but he was next to two of his brothers. Everyone had to face Mengele [Annotator's Note: SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Josef Mengele] to find out who would live and who would die. Jewish prisoners were taking the luggage off the trains. A prisoner jumped off the train and told Gross to tell the Nazis he was 17 years-old so he would not be sent with his parents. Gross asked what happened if he did. The prisoner pointed out the two buildings where the people going to the left were taken and gassed. HIs brothers heard this as well. The fellow prisoner told him to look at the smoke and said "in four hours, that will be your parents." That message was seared into his brain and he was afraid that Mengele would not believe him. Mengele had a German shepherd which frightened him even more. Mengele ordered Gross's brothers to go right and then just stared at him. Mengele finally asked his age in German and Gross stammered. He was asked again, and replied 17 and was sent with his brothers. They joined hundreds of people in a large building. In the afternoon they went into a field, got undressed and shaved each other completely of hair. Gross had his identification number, 71000366, only on his jacket because he was not at the camp long enough to get tattooed. The camp for women was over the fence and they were going through the same thing. [Annotator's Note: Gross tears up.] Once everyone was dressed, they could not tell the difference between men and women. Gross and his brothers were sent to Kaufering near Munich. [Annotator's Note: Kaufering was a subcamp of Dachau; Landsberg am Lech, Germany.] He went to camp one of seven [Annotator's Note: Kaufering I]. They did not want to wind up in camp seven [Annotator's Note: Kaufering VII] which was for prisoners who could not produce well and was a stop before Dachau.

[Annotator's Note: There is an odd cut in video here.] Ernest Gross was sent from Auschwitz [Annotator's Note: Auschwitz, a complex of over 40 concentration camps and extermination camps in German-occupied Poland] to Kaufering [Annotator's Note: Kaufering; subcamp of Dachau; Landsberg am Lech, Germany] in 1944. Once he arrived, he was given an aluminum cup and told that if he lost it there would be no food. Gross found some string and kept it tied to him all the time. The prisoners were also given one loaf of bread for each eight people. They drew lots for which part of the bread they would get. A father and son got the end and the middle. The father who had gotten the end piece asked his son for the middle as he needed more energy and the son refused. This taught Gross that if you shared you would not survive. Relationships dissolved in the camp. He said that the cigarette smokers had it rough due to their addiction. He worked often at the train station where he would find cigarette butts that he could trade for bread. This all taught him to survive. His greatest lesson involved potatoes. He was told his cousin had a potato and he should go ask for some. He did not know whether to go or not. He went and asked his cousin for the peels only. His cousin thought it over and told him he would eat the whole potato himself–at least one of them would survive. They both survived. After the war, the cousin lived in New York and Gross in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The cousin called once and asked Gross for 500 dollars. Gross remembered the potato, but he also believed in tzedakah [Annotator's Note: charitable giving, typically seen as a moral obligation]. He now tells his students to share lunch with someone worse off and do not take revenge. After thinking it through, Gross decided to give his cousin a loan. After four months, the payments stopped, and Gross forgave the loan. He says that that is how he survived the camp. One thing at a time. Every day when he awoke, he told himself he would just survive to another day.

Ernest Gross, a prisoner at Kaufering [Annotator's Note: Kaufering; subcamp of Dachau; Landsberg am Lech, Germany], says the prisoners slept 32 people to one board, on two sides of the barracks. Each person got a blanket. It would not be unusual to have a neighbor who died of starvation during the night. He recalls a rainy day and arriving home with wet clothes. He could not sleep well that night and he was hungry. The camp lights were always on except when the Americans were coming to bomb. The lights were out, and Gross decided to run to the kitchen to get food. Almost back to the barracks with food, three prisoners attacked him and took it. He was also missing a shoe. He had to get back before the lights came on. In the barracks, he wrapped part of his blanket around his foot. After work the next day, he received a slip to get new shoes. When Gross received his shoes, they were the wrong size. When he took them back the German soldier asked him to come close and then slapped him and told him to leave. The next day it was snowing, and he could not keep up in the march to work. Another soldier told him to either take off his shoes and walk barefoot in the snow or lag behind and be shot. At the work site, Gross found another prisoner he could exchange shoes with. He was told then, that they all knew that he was going to survive the camp.

Ernest Gross, a prisoner at Kaufering [Annotator's Note: Kaufering; subcamp of Dachau; Landsberg am Lech, Germany], says they were watched constantly while working. If they were too slow, they would be beaten. Often, his job would be to go on the train platform and unload 50 pound bags of cement. At only 15, he felt his bones would break. Later he would either clean out trees or clean up after bombing raids. They worked from dark to dark daily. They received a small amount of black coffee in the mornings; no lunch; three-quarters of a cup of soup for the evening. Every morning at five there was a knock on the door, everyone up for roll call which would last an hour. Then they were marched up to two miles to work. He did not know anything about his brothers and did not know anyone's names and rarely had conversations with anyone. Once he was walking to work and the man to his right said that if he survived, he would never believe in God because his wife and his ten year old son were gone. The man to the left said that he had never believed in God but that if he survived, he would. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Gross what his opinion was at the time. Gross does not answer the question so the interviewer rephrases the question.] Gross says that early on after his liberation, he was unable to tell his story without using humor or he would completely break down. Once after telling this story, he dreamed about God. He and God were alone in a room with no windows. He needed to sneeze and did not want to do that in front of God. Then God sneezed and Gross woke up. [Annotator's Note: Gross laughs a good long time. The interviewer asks if his faith was shaken in the camps.] Gross says he had questions regarding faith like anyone else. He gives an example: after the war, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania he heard a rabbi being interviewed on the news. Asked about who would lose their lives coming to worship, the rabbi said that he does not know the answer. Sometimes he has faith and sometimes he is questioning, and he respects all religions because nothing has been proven.

Ernest Gross, a prisoner at Kaufering [Annotator’s Note: Kaufering; subcamp of Dachau; Landsberg am Lech, Germany] says that there is no way to describe the intense hunger he experienced. He was always hungry. One day after working, a soldier pulled him and his cousin out of the line. Gross knew then they were going to camp seven [Annotator's Note: Kaufering VII] for those who don't produce. There was no food there. On 28 April 1945, the weather was nice, and the grass was starting to grow. [Annotator's Note: unsure of his cousin's name, possibly Ishmael]. His cousin saw the grass and said that if cows eat it, so can he. Gross could not eat it despite his hunger, which he describes as worse than the pain of pain. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks him about giving up.] On 29 April 1945, a train came to take Gross and his cousin to Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau; first concentration camp; Dachau, Germany] to be killed. In line at Dachau, he could not see the crematoriums and that meant for him that it would be his turn in a half an hour. In that moment, he was happy that he would not be hungry and not be wet. As he got closer, a soldier threw down his weapon and ran away. Gross does not recall what happened next, but knows that the next day he was in a hospital. He was fed for about two weeks. He was in a room praying when his older brother Abraham walked in. He was happy but sad because his other brother David, who was his favorite brother was not with him. He had had died of starvation. [Annotator's Note: Gross takes a long pause.] Sixty years later, Gross wanted to find any soldier who had liberated the camp. He found Dan Greenville, called him and asked to meet. They did meet and when they are together Gross feels he is with his brother. [Annotator's Note: Gross is asked if recalls getting to the sanitorium.] Gross only recalls that at the hospital he was given sensitive food. When liberating the camps, some soldiers gave food such as hot dogs to the starving prisoners and it actually killed them. His brother Abraham told him he knew they lost five family members in the camps and said he wanted to return home to see if anyone was left. They went back to Tulc, Romania and found another brother and sister there. The Romanians did not like them anymore because they had to give them their houses back. They would throw stones in the windows at night, so they all decided to leave again. Gross was the only one to emigrate to the United States. His brother Abraham and his sister went to Israel, while his older brother went to Belgium. He wanted to come to the United States because he was told that money grows on trees and he did not want to go to Israel because it does not.

In 1947, after being liberated from Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau; first concentration camp; Dachau, Germany] just one-half hour before he was to be gassed and cremated, Ernest Gross emigrated to the United States. He was assigned a social worker who spoke Yiddish. He could only converse with her. He had never finished high school, had no trade skills. He was put into a home with a woman who spoke Yiddish. When he had arrived in New York, he was given ice cream for the first time in his life. Later when he got his first dollar and 50 cents, and he bought ice cream. He took whatever was given to him. Gross was told to get a job and get an apartment. His dentist had an uncle who got him a job making false teeth. He was in that business for three years, before becoming ill due the chemicals used in making the dentures. He then went to a large Jewish delicatessen and was taught to cut lox. He picked it up right away and the customers would wait to get lox when Gross was working. He then worked in the deli business for the rest of his life. He never wanted to talk about the war because he wanted to become American. His first wife was also a survivor, but they never spoke of it to each other. After she died, he realized that he never knew his wife at all, so he started talking about his own experiences. His three sons did not know any of his story until he started giving talks in the schools.

Holocaust survivor Ernest Gross gives talks in the schools to teach them not to hate and to get along with each other. He teaches that we all are from the same source. World War 2 and the Holocaust should continue to be taught so that everyone will get along better. Gross feels before the camps, it was hard for him to not be helpful. He had to train himself to be selfish in the camps. After liberation, he went to dinner with his wife and she asked for a bite of his meal, he said he was too hungry to share. When he gave his sons an allowance he was thinking only of what he had left. He decided to change. He would start training his brain to give, by purchasing things he did not need, from people he felt needed the money more. He only knew of his siblings surviving the camps because of his brother. He never saw a list of what camps his parents died in because he did not want to. He did go to the Holocaust museum in Washington [Annotator's Note: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum], but he was still acting as if he had been born here because he wasn't ready to talk to anyone. He was not aware of others talking about their experiences.

Holocaust survivor, Ernest Gross does not give a thought to Holocaust deniers because he feels there is no way they can be persuaded otherwise. Gross was afraid to go back to his hometown of Tulc, Romania. He knew of survivors who went to get their houses back and were killed. He does not travel anymore and is not interested in seeing Auschwitz [Annotator's Note: Auschwitz, a complex of over 40 concentration camps and extermination camps in German-occupied Poland] again. He was invited to Germany to help celebrate at Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau; first concentration camp; Dachau, Germany]. He went with his son and at the crematorium he refused to go in. They were being filmed and he says that everyone was bewildered. He got off the bus and was met by an Italian teacher who spoke English. He talked to the children through her and he got new energy. An editor of a paper in Munich interviewed him and she told him she was ashamed of Germany. She stayed with him and helped him the rest of the day. [Annotator's Note: Gross gets emotional.] He does get affected by speaking of his experience. He dreams and wakes up scared and sometimes it depresses him for a week or so, but he knows he has to do it. When Gross talks to students who are between 15 and 19 year's old, it especially gets to him since that was his age in the camps. A school principal told him he was a good speaker and a good educator as well and that he does make a difference in young people's lives. Once Gross made up his mind to speak, he would speak to anyone. A nursing home called and asked him to speak to them. He went and was told the people had dementia and Alzheimer's. He was asked to return, and he was surprised to see that many of them remembered him despite their conditions. He needed to know for certain though, so he could know how to start the lecture. He asked them if they knew who he was. A lady stood and told him to go to the front desk and they would tell him who he was. [Annotator's Note: Gross laughs so hard he gets red-faced.]