Abe Piasek

Abram "Abe" Piasek (10 November 1928 – 15 January 2020)[1] was a survivor of four death camps in Poland and Germany, and a veteran of the U.S. Army. He shared his story of survival with thousands of students and people throughout North Carolina at schools, universities, libraries, and military bases. At the end of the war, Piasek (he preferred to be called "Abe" rather than Mr. Piasek) survived because the train he was on, which he later learned was bound for Dachau, was bombed by allied forces.[2]

Piasek was born in Białobrzegi, Kielce Voivodeship, Poland, in 1928, and came to the United States on August 3, 1947[3], a date he would celebrate every year with his family.

Piasek, who was about to turn 11 years old when German forces invaded Poland in September, 1939, saw one of his good friends shot in front of him at close range by an SS soldier. His life would never be the same. Several months later, he was separated from his family and sent to a slave labor camp in Radom, about 20 miles south of his home town. He worked there from 1942-44, making pistols in a factory. In 1944, about 2,000 Jewish prisoners from Radom were transported to the Vaihingen concentration camp. After a few months repairing craters made in German air strips by Allied bombing raids, he was transferred to the nearby Hessental camp, where he worked on repairing railroad ties.[4] In Spring of 1945, as Allied troops approached, he was put on a train to transport him deeper into Germany. Allied bombing raids stopped his train and allowed him to escape. Piasek later learned his train was bound for Dachau.[4]

After World War II ended, Piasek spent two years in displaced persons camps in Germany. He lived for 28 years in Connecticut, where he learned English, met his wife of 60 years, Shirley, and learned to be a baker. In 1975, he moved to California, and in 1991, he retired to Florida. A few years after the movie Schindler's List came out, Piasek was interviewed by the USC Shoah Foundation in 1995.[5] He slowly began, after more than 40 years of silence[6], to tell his story to groups of students.

Piasek and his wife, Shirley, moved to North Carolina in 2009. After Shirley died in 2012, Piasek spent more and more time sharing his story with military bases[7], libraries[8], and community centers.

In 2015, Piasek and other survivors were reunited with one of the U.S. soldiers who helped liberate them 70 years earlier.[9]

In April 2019, Piasek accompanied a group of high school students on a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.[10] Though he had long been a member of the museum, this was his first visit there. While at the museum, Piasek went to the cattle car on the third floor and narrated his liberation[11] for his great-grandchildren and the other students on the trip.

In late May 2019, Piasek gave a talk for nearly two hours[12] at a church in Faison, NC, describing his story.

Piasek fell while doing work in his garage in September, 2019, and was hospitalized for several weeks. While in the hospital, he took the opportunity to share his story with doctors, nurses, and patients at Wake Med Hospital (despite being in a neck brace and a wheelchair at the time).[13]

Piasek died on January 15, 2020.[14]