“November 2, 2022 my father Marcel Tuchman who thankfully lived to the wonderful age of 97 would have been 101 years old…
I want to celebrate his life as one of the most monumental humans and humanists that I’ve ever met in my life… A man born in Poland to a wonderful family who watched the rise of Nazi Germany changed his life forever, The man who watched his mother shot in the face and killed right in front of him, by a Gestapo named Joseph Schwamberger… her last words were you may kill me but you will never get my son and my husband…. She was right my father and my grandfather survived the war against all odds as slave laborers in the Nazi death camps called Auschwitz.. Four years… facing death starvation disease every single day clearly their survival was by the grace of God and the severe resilience of their spirits… hatred was and is the enemy… after four years my father met my mother who also spent four years in the women’s death camp Bergen Belsen and they fell in love came to America had me and my brother and lived a beautiful blessed life… to have lived through the horrors that they did to have lost 95% of their family to the gas chamber..
The fact that they woke up every morning with a smile on their face with love in their heart and kindness in their souls was the greatest revenge they could have survival… when asked by me and others of my father are you bitter for what happened… he would say I am bitter sweet.. They did not succeed in killing them destroying their spirit and their determination to survive… they lived to tell the stories of all those who perished during World War II under the arm of the devil…
Today I celebrate my father it’s his birthday I celebrate my mother his partner and I celebrate my family legacy of perseverance resilience and my responsibility to tell the story to stand up against hatred and know that it will never win… however if we don’t tell the story the true story we are bound to repeat the sins of the past…. Papa I love you I miss you and I hope I am living my life in your honor sharing kindness and love to everyone.” – Peter Tuchman
