Laszlo Schwarc was born in the village of Baktaloranthaza, Hungary, where his Jewish family lived peacefully among a predominantly Christian population. He was 12 years old in 1942, attending a Jewish parochial school, when the village's financial difficulties required his transferring to a Roman Catholic school. Initially, the children of different faiths respected each other's religion, and there were no problems until the Nazi movement gained strength. Schwarc began to feel excluded from Hungarian society, a feeling that as a child he did not understand. When he was 14, his mother got a tip from the postmaster that his family was going to be taken away, and the only reason she could offer her young son was the fact that they were Jewish. The police arrived, confiscated the family's valuables, and gathered the village's 50 Jewish families at the synagogue. As they were being taken out of town by cart, the church bells in the Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Protestant churches in their home village were ringing. Schwarc felt they were saying, "good riddance, I hope we never see you again." Approximately 8,000 Jews from neighboring villages were imposed upon the families of the Jewish ghetto in the city of Kisvarda, all of them trying to survive on dwindling food supplies. After four weeks, the Hungarian police escorted Schwarc's family to the railway station, and loaded them into cattle cars for an agonizing journey to Auschwitz.

None of the Jews deported with Laszlo Schwarc knew what Auschwitz was. The SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel, the paramilitary arm of the Nazi party] and Gestapo were waiting their arrival, and immediately separated men from women. Schwarc was lined up with his stepfather, witnessing babies being taken from their mothers, and sensed it meant instant death for them. Dr. Mengele [Annotator's Note: SS-Hauptsturmführer Doctor Josef Mengele], who was directing the proceedings, was well dressed and handsome, and Schwarc said he made a wonderful impression on him. Schwarc lied when he told Mengele he was 17, but on his stepfather's advice, slipped into the line for the children's barracks. There he miserably remained for ten days, then moved without permission to be with a friend in the men's area. Schwarc did not yet have his prisoner's number, and left Auschwitz undetected on the transport for Dachau, which he said was like a summer camp compared to Auschwitz. At Dachau, Schwarc became prisoner number 71253 and was assigned to the Bavarian Baverische Motoren Werke [Annotator's Note: also knwn as BMW, the automobile manufacturer], a company producing tanks, airplanes and ammunition. At his tender age, he was carrying 50 pound sacks of cement and inhaling the cement dust, and was sure he couldn't survive the work. Luckily, he was reassigned several times, ending up in one of Dachau's 165 satellite camps called Karlsfeld-Allach, between Munich and Dachau. He had the favor of one of the guards, and a local lady would give him bread once a week, which helped him to carry on. But when it became apparent that the Nazis were losing the war, even the Germans were starving. He always thought he would live to tell his tale to school kids.

On 25 April 1945, Laszlo Schwarc was among 3,600 prisoners put on 80 cattle cars from the Muhldorf concentration camp for transport to the mountains of Austria where they were to be killed. The train stopped in the small town of Poing, and freed the prisoners. Schwarc walked to a farm where a Catholic lady took him in and fed him. A Hitler Youth showed up at the back door and tried to arrest him; when he ran, the youth shot him. The bullet hit Schwarc's jaw and exited his cheek. He surrendered, and was taken back to the train station where he saw the bodies of 54 prisoners that had been tortured and killed. He was thrown back into a cattle car with another wounded friend who died in his arms. Schwarc suspected the train was a military transport, because it was attacked several times by American planes. Over a hundred prisoners were killed before Schwarc threw a prisoner's jacket on top of the train and the barrage ended. The prisoners were liberated by the Americans in a place called Tuzing, near Munich, on 30 April 1945. Rather than going immediately to the hospital, Schwarc went into town to beg for food, but he was spotted by a fellow prisoner who was a doctor, and was sent to the infirmary for care. Because he also had typhus, he had to be taken to Feldafing for a six-week recovery period. Even so, he needed a major operation to straighten his badly healed jaw, and was placed with 35 SS amputees, the only Jewish prisoner among them. The SS men would say to him, "we are not responsible for what happened to you."

Laszlo Schwarc said no German wanted to take responsibility for what happened to the Jews. After leaving the hospital, Schwarc went back to his home village because he wanted to retrieve correspondence from his father's family members who had immigrated to the United States. It was all gone. The Russians had occupied Hungary and the country was under Communism. Schwarc and a friend went back to Germany and settled into a Displaced Persons camp in Fernwald. An uncle sought him out, and, after a difficult sea voyage, he arrived in New York, and was later welcomed in Los Angeles in 1946. He was 16 years old and spoke no English. Schwarc went to an elementary school with mostly Hispanic children, and played soccer.

When he got word that his dear friend was in New York, Laszlo Schwarc journeyed back east to meet him and stayed with an aunt in Brooklyn. There, he continued his high school education, and married his first wife. He worked for a life insurance company for the next 20 years, managing the printing department. When that business was sold, Schwarc opened his own business in New York City. Recalling his family, Schwarc mentioned that he had a sister, Judith, and a half-sister, Eva, both of whom he thought had perished at Auschwitz. In 1952, however, he ran into two Hungarian ladies on the New York subway, and learned that his mother and siblings were among 10,000 women prisoners put on a ship in the Baltic Sea two days before liberation. The British, thinking it was a German military ship, bombed the vessel, and the women went down with the ship. Schwarc remembered that the camps around Dachau in which he was held included Mittergars, Mettenheim, and Muhldorf. He mentioned that determination was the key to his survival. He recollects that the guards in Hungary were trying to live up to the publicity they were enjoying, and they were brutal because the Nazi party had generated such hostility and hatred. He offered a poem called "The Legacy," that he reads to school kids wherever he gives talks, which speaks to the Holocaust survivors' mantra, "Never Forget."

Laszlo Schwarc wanted to talk about the World War 2 veterans. He said when he was in the displaced persons camp he saw African-American soldiers, and although he knew about "negroes," he had never before seen one. He was ignorant about racism, and began to simply think of them as part of the United States. They brought food and entertainment to the survivors, and Schwarc admired their spirit. He was upset to learn about the racism prevalent in the United States. Notwithstanding, he cherished the U.S. Army for liberating him. It was General Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant general George S. Patton] Third Division that arrived in tanks, and the roar of their coming was like music to him. The American soldiers were throwing cigarettes and candy and chewing gum, but Schwarc was wounded and too weak to scramble for the bounty.

People ask Laszlo Schwarc about how he feels about his religion. He found it difficult to believe that God could witness his sisters being grabbed in Auschwitz, and said he can find no answer. When he came to America, he did not discuss what he went through during the Holocaust. He was told to forget the past. Schwarc did not begin to talk about his experiences until 2010 after he went back to Poing, seeking a lady who had fed him bread and butter when he was starving, but couldn't find her. A journalist helped him discover that she had died, but also put Schwarc's story into a bestselling book. Together they also uncovered the fact that Max Mannheimer, the most recognized Holocaust survivor in Germany, was on the same death train with Schwarc, and the two met 65 years after the event. Mannheimer was speaking to German school children about the Holocaust, and suggested Schwarc do the same in America.

Laszlo Schwarc watches movies about the Holocaust with some difficulty, but he no longer wants hatred to be part of his life. His healing process started with the German students who were cordial and respectful to him. He does not suffer nightmares. He wants children to learn from him that determination is the key to survival. He feels his own survival is a miracle. Schwarc has never been back to Auschwitz but has visited Dachau on multiple occasions. The English version of his story is the most popular book in the gift shop at Dachau.