Holocaust survivor Michael Bornstein and his daughter Debbie Bornstein Holinstat were guest speakers at Cornell College Monday, March 28. The speech was a reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust, and keeping survivors stories told, as more and more people repudiate the Holocaust. Bornstein and Holinstat wrote a book, “Survivors Club,” about the Bornstein’s family and experiences in the Holocaust.
“During World War II, I lost my home, lost all my possessions, my father and older brother, and at one point, even my name,” Bornstein said.
Bornstein, who was only four during his time at Auschwitz, doesn’t know how much of his memories are his own and how much come from the stories his mother told over the years.
“The one thing I don’t think I’ll ever forget is the smell,” Bornstein said. “There was a nasty, heavy smell, the smell of burning flesh that hung over that camp, as well as Nazis yelling at me in German and the constant scrounging for food.”
Bornstein said those memories have made him more empathetic to the plight of Ukrainians and others as he reads the New York Times and other newspapers today.
“I think of the times I was so cold, I couldn’t sleep, or being so hungry I couldn’t think of anything else,” Bornstein said.
Holinstat said her father never wanted to be a public speaker, nor write a book.
“He was happy to be a scientist, soccer dad and now soccer papa, getting some of the best pictures from the sidelines,” Bornstein said. “This was something we really started five years ago out of his love for his grandchildren and out of sensibility to other survivors to tell his story.”
One of the big pushes for Bornstein and Holinstat was encountering websites online that tried to rewrite history and spread misinformation about the Holocaust.
“It was something we discovered that horrified my dad,” Holinstat said. “It became abundantly clear that Holocaust disinformation was the biggest threat to Holocaust survivors.”
Roughly seven years ago, Holinstat said they never imagined encountering a gunman walking into a synagogue in Texas because they believed that disinformation.
Bornstein was the son of Israel Bornstein and Sophie Bornstein. Israel was an accountant, and Sophie was an actress.
They lived in Zarki, Poland. On September 4, 1939, known as Bloody Monday, German planes, bombers and eventually German forces occupied Bornstein’s hometown.
Bornstein was born May 2, 1940, after German occupation had occurred.
Israel served as Judenrat for the village at the time. The Judenrat was the go between with the Nazis and the Jewish people, and they would determine the work duties that members of their community would be involved with, as well as work to save people in the town.
“Israel was viewed as a hero in town, because he had such good influence with the Nazi guards and made conditions more bearable in the ghettos during the initial occupation,” Holinstat said.
In 1941, the Bornstein family was sent to the Pionki Labor Camp when the ghetto was liquidated.
“That was one of the lucky breaks, they had a sympathetic person running the camp,” Holinstat said. “They lived in a barbed wire tenement and were responsible for packing bullets, but within that encampment, they had all the food they wanted, as well as things like soap, toothpaste and the like, because the German running the camp was kind and generous.”
Bornstein and his family were taken to Auschwitz in 1944.
Bornstein remembers the trip via train car, and being packed in.
“It would sometimes take days from the camps to get to Auschwitz, and all these people packed tightly into cars, there were people who passed away,” Bornstein said. “That’s how I lost one of my grandfathers.”
Bornstein was somehow lucky on arriving at Auschwitz, as he was not one of the children taken immediately to the gas chamber.
“Every expert we have called has said dad surviving that initial arrival to Auschwitz was a miracle, as the Germans didn’t see a need to save many children,” Holinstat said. “We think that was one of the last graces from Pionki, as that camp commander said the people from that camp were some of the best trained prisoners in the world, and if you keep them alive, they’d do what tasks were assigned.”
Bornstein and his mother were moved to Birkenau Auschwitz, while his brother and father were taken to a men’s bunk on that side of camp.
Bornstein started living in a children’s bunker at Auschwitz. He recalls that being one of the youngest, the other children would steal his bread from him. He only survived because his mother smuggled rations for him into that bunker, suffering abuse to do so.
His mother eventually snuck him into the bunk building where she lived, hiding him under the straw bedding when she worked in the camp during the day.
The women of Birkenau all worked to make sure the children who were alive were looked after as well, risking sneaking items like fruit and vegetables to the prisoners.
Sophie learned her son Samuel and husband Israel had been killed in the gas chambers early in their stay in Auschwitz.
“When grandma learned that, she thought about ending her life and throwing herself against the electric fences between the camps,” Holinstat said. “The only thing that kept her going was she still had one son to protect.”
After six months at Auschwitz, Sophie was transported from Auschwitz to an Austrian labor camp, where she would be responsible for packing bullets, a skill she had learned at Pionki. When she left Auschwitz, she was certain she wouldn’t see her son again, and said goodbye to Bornstein at that time.
On Jan. 27, 1945, the Soviets liberated Auschwitz, and when they did so, Bornstein was one of the children saved. Bornstein and his mother were eventually reunited.
Holinstat explained that her father had been sick ahead of the Germans starting the death marches from the prison camp to other camps to try and hide atrocities in the war.
“Great-grandma Dora was able to sneak dad into the infirmary in Auschwitz,” Holinstat said. “The Germans didn’t clear out the infirmary when they started the death marches, so dad was one of those rescued by the Soviets.”
After the war, Bornstein and his mother Sophie moved to Munich, Germany, before emigrating to the United States in February of 1951. Bornstein recalled the seven-day and seven-night trip by boat; he was seasick the entire trip.
In March 1957, Bornstein became a United States citizen, one of the proudest moments of his life.
Bornstein eventually attended Fordham University and the University of Iowa to study pharmacology.
“One of the big lessons dad ingrained in all of his children is the importance of education – that it’s one of the things that they can never take away from you,” Holinstat said.
Bornstein met his wife Judy when he was a student at the University of Iowa. The couple now has four children and 12 grandchildren. They reside in New Jersey, and he has worked at Dow Chemicals most of his life.
Holinstat and Bornstein were among some of 100 Holocaust survivors and their families who returned to Auschwitz in 2020, where they were keynote speakers at the event, recounting Bornstein’s story and the stories of his family.
There they crossed paths with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where Zelenskyy was able to hold the Bornstein Kiddush cup, one of the only pieces that the family found in their buried vault of items hidden before they were taken to Pionki.
Bornstein and Holinstat said the actual in-depth research for the book took a year and a half to complete, compiled with their family memories and history, and the book took a year for Holinstat to write, and another year working with an editor to be ready for publication.
When it came to what was the most important thing for keeping those experiences alive, Holinstat said that attending lectures like this were important, especially for youth and students in the area.
“Your generation is one of the last who will actually hear the stories from Holocaust survivors first hand,” Holinstat said. “Learning and listening to these stories and other views of first hand experiences is important. It’s going to be harder to convince people this was real when we lose more of these survivors and their stories.”

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Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat present at Cornell College Monday, March 28.