96-year-old Holocaust survivor shares his story with Seneca Valley High School students
JACKSON TWP — Even at 96-years-old, Howard Chandler still carries vivid memories of the unimaginable atrocities he witnessed and experienced as a young boy.
As one of only an estimated 220,800 living survivors of the Holocaust, according to a recent Claims Conference study, Chandler has turned his trauma into purpose through an educational nonprofit known as Classrooms without Borders.
On Friday morning, Chandler spoke to hundreds of Seneca Valley Senior High School students about the experiences that have defined him throughout nearly a century of life.
“It’s a privilege for me to do it,” said Chandler, who regularly makes the nearly six-hour drive to Pittsburgh from his home in Toronto, Canada, with some of his close family members. “It’s not easy to do it, but it’s very necessary, especially in these times.”
Chandler has been a member of the nonprofit since 2011, mostly venturing into the Greater Pittsburgh area, but occasionally making the overseas trek to his birthplace in Poland.
He was 11 when the Nazis invaded his home country on Sept. 1, 1939 and promptly stormed his Wierzbnik Jewish community, which harbored about 3,500 residents at the time.
Soon after, Chandler and his siblings were banned from attending school as the occupiers set up what was known as the Wierzbnik ghetto. While his family remained in their home for more than three years, that all changed when Nazi Germany disbanded the ghetto on Oct. 27, 1942.
His youngest brother, sister and mother were sent to Treblinka and murdered, while he, along with his brother and father, were shipped away to a slave-labor camp in Wierzbnik.
Chandler described what work was like under the Nazi regime, recounting the time that he had escaped when he was just 14-years-old.
While he did manage to escape, he returned in short order to the gates of the camp, fearing that his father and other Jews would be killed in retribution for his bolt for freedom.
“I threw myself at the mercy of the guard,” Chandler said. “He beat the hell out of me. I was ready for him to shoot me. Luckily, he didn’t shoot me, but he beat me very badly. This is one of the incidents that you have to have luck.”
Two years passed before he and his surviving family members were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were laborers for six months.
Only he and his brother survived the death marches on the way to Buchenwald, before they were liberated from Theresienstadt, a ghetto-labor camp in what is now the Czech Republic.
Chandler said he hopes that his message sticks with students as they complete high school and move up in the world.
“I’m grateful to see so many people who are interested in it,” he said. “And what they do with it depends on each and every one of them — what kind of values they have in life, values that they pick up, values that they’re taught and values that they espouse toward others.”
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Gianni Medici, right, talks with Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler students after his initial talk at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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History teacher Jim Lucot asks questions to Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler concerning various aspects of his life as a practicing Jew at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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History teacher Jim Lucot asks questions to Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler concerning various aspects of his life as a practicing Jew at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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History teacher Jim Lucot asks questions to Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler concerning various aspects of his life as a practicing Jew at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students after his initial talk at Seneca Valley Senior High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler talks to students and answer questions about his life before, during, and after being a slave laborer in the Auschwitz concentration camp at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
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History teacher Jim Lucot asks questions to Holocaust survivor Howard Chandler concerning various aspects of his life as a practicing Jew at Seneca Valley High School on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025. Rob McGraw/Butler Eagle.
Dozens of students gathered around Chandler after his talk, eager to shake his hand and speak with him.
“I think just the importance of hearing the firsthand experience of someone who’s gone through such an important and world-changing event,” said junior Caden Geckeler about what resonated with him from Chandler’s presentation. “I saw the importance of tolerating people and the consequences of when people don’t see each other as people and as human beings.”
During a closing question and answer session with students, the final question that Chandler was asked was about his legacy and what he wishes for others as they navigate through life.
“Be kind to people,” he said. “Put that smile on their face. Be helpful to others. Be generous to the less fortunate in any way that you can and should be. Plain and simple — be a nice human being.”
