Holocaust Survivor Who Lost Family Shares Story With Students

Sam Kujawski could have chosen the path of revenge when he lost his entire family, including his 17 brothers and sisters, in Poland during the Holocaust.

But the 87-year-old Cathedral City resident chose a different route.

“I made a commitment to my father before he died that I would share the stories all over,” Kujawski recently told a group of 50 Palm Desert Charter Middle School students.

Kujawski is one of several Holocaust survivors who shared their stories with the students at the Tolerance Education Center last week.

He started his story with a story of praying in the synagogue with his family, when German troops set a fire.

“I jumped out through the window and I got (struck by) two bullets,” he said, adding that soon after his family was moved in a ghetto with thousands of other Jews.

After some time, his family was put on a cattle car for four days and sent to a concentration camp.

When they arrived at the camp, troops opened fire on the cattle cars.

“My sister, my brother, my whole family, they were killed,” he said.

That day his father made him promise to tell the story, and to take revenge.

Ultimately, he said he decided to only pursue the first of his father’s wishes.

“A Jew is not a killer,” Kujawaski said of his decision. “I had a lot of chances to kill the Germans after the war.”

He said he gave up his believe in God for a time, but then he went to the synagogue to pray.

“I prayed that God should punish them,” he recalled.

Sydney Bush, 13, of Palm Desert said she was touched by Kujawski’s story, especially the part “about his family when they all die.”

Her mother, Shannon Bush, said that the talk hit home as well.

“It was very moving,” she said.

The Tolerance Education Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located on Landy Lane near Bob Hope Drive.