COLUMBUS, Ohio — Victor Levenstein’s home office is decorated with photos of his wife, awards, plaques and books – one of which he published about his father who died in a labor camp.
Levenstein was born in Ukraine in 1922, which makes him 101 years old. For most of his life, he lived in Moscow where his father worked.
He said in 1937, his father was arrested and later died in a labor camp. Then, his mother was arrested as well.
During that time, he was 15 years old and left alone in Moscow until his aunt, whom he says "was a remarkable woman," took him in.
He eventually went to Moscow University where he attended classes in the physics department. In 1941, Germany began invading the Soviet Union. After being sent to the front lines of the war to dig trenches, Levenstein became sick.
His sickness prevented him from being sent to fight in the war, but his family in German-occupied parts of the Soviet Union would become victims of the Nazi regime.
"[My grandfather] was put into a ravine along with 120 Jews of Nikolaev. It was August 20, 1941. They shot, executed 120 Jews," Levenstein said.
Then in 1944, Levenstein was arrested by the KGB along with 12 others.
"I was arrested when I was 21 as a member of an anti-Soviet youth group. I was arrested with my former high school friends," he said.
He was accused by the KGB of being a part of a plot to kill Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. He was forced to spend five years in a labor camp because of the accusation.
After he was free, he wrote a book called, "The Story of My Father," and later married his wife.
Now, 79 years after German concentration camps were liberated and in recognition of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Levenstein said it has to be remembered as the nation sees a rise in anti-Jewish sentiment.
"Don't forget it. People forget it. People keep forgetting. It's still there," he said.
Germany has paid more than $90 billion to people for the suffering and losses resulting from the Holocaust. Levenstein and his late wife have been recipients of some of those reparations.