Bluffton middle school students met a real survivor on Monday.

Students learned first-hand about the Holocaust as survivor, Conrad Weiner, 81, of Cincinnati, recounted his chilling story in an assembly.

His story had the full attention of each of the students as it included several sobering incidences.

Weiner, born in 1938 in what is today part of the Ukraine, was part of a massive campaign of annihilation and deportation of Jews.

At age 3 ½ he was taken with other Jews to Budi, a forced labor camp. The trip was by railroad cattle car and it took two days and one night.

After debarking the captures were forced to walk for two weeks in snow and mud to the labor camp.

While at Budi, Conrad fell very ill. He said that many of the prisoners advised his mother to “give up.” Her response was that a mother does not give up on her child.

Eventually, Conrad was nursed back to health by his mother.

Then, at age 6, in 1944 he along with 300 surviving prisoners were liberated by the advancing Soviet army. They were repatriated to Romania.

In 1946 Romania became a Communist country. It wasn’t until July of 1960 that paperwork was approved for Conrad and his family to come to the United States.

Here, he settled in Cincinnati. He eventually graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree in German and Russian language and literature.

In 1968 he obtained an M.B.A. from the University of Cincinnati on a scholarship. He eventually become a teacher.