Holocaust survivor, Abe Piasek, dies at 91 in Raleigh
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Abram 'Abe' Piasek, a Polish Holocaust survivor who was a frequent guest and speaker of schools across North Carolina has died, the NC Council on the Holocaust said on Thursday. He was 91.
Piasek was 12 years old in 1940 when the SS entered his hometown in Poland and killed or deported most of the Jewish residents. He was separated from his parents and sister, whom he would never see again, according to The Holocaust: A North Carolina Teacher's Resource.
"That date sticks in my mind," Piasek told ABC11 in a 2018 interview. "How could an intelligent people, like the German people, do things like that?"
Piasek survived Auschwitz and endured forced slave labor in Poland and Germany for two years.
American troops liberated Piasek in 1945 before he immigrated to the United States on Aug. 3, 1947. In 2009, Piasek and his wife, Shirley, moved to Raleigh to be closer to his daughter.
During his time in Raleigh, he made his first trip to the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. with students from the Research Triangle High School.
Piasek's funeral is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
