Welcome to The Moth Podcast.

I'm Michelle Jalowski, a director and producer at The Moth, and your host for this episode.

We're going to be sharing a very special story with you today.

It's a story about survival and resilience and one child's experience in the Holocaust.

Albert Hepner told this at a Moth main stage in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Stick around after the story for an interview with Albert,

where I'll talk to him about his life after the war,

what we can take away from his experiences, and so much more.

Here's Albert, live at the moth.

It's 1940.

I'm five years old.

I'm lying in bed.

It's a Wednesday night.

The night my father and three of his buddies are playing cards.

And I'm doing pretty well, sleeping, used to the noise that they make,

and suddenly there's a big noise that sounds like thunder.

And I wake up to it, and I see my father jumping up to shut the lights and close the curtains.

And he's just looking out.

And what sounded to me like thunder was for the adults,

some bombing outside of Brussels, Belgium.

And my father says, Saccamance, which means it's starting.

I suppose it was the first time that I realized something was wrong and I felt affected by it,

...