Concentration Camp Survivor Who's Dressed Presidents and Celebrities Embodies Message of 'Hope

Martin Greenfield was a young teenager when his entire family was taken to Auschwitz. When they arrived, his grandfather -- who had been a ghetto leader -- was wrestled to the floor and had his beard cut by Nazi guards, before being separated from his family for the last time.

Speaking on The Glenn Beck Program Monday, the now-elderly man had tears in his eyes as he remembered how his four-year-old brother held his hand the entire train ride to Auschwitz, and how his mother refused to let go of her children. The Nazis eventually took Greenfield's sister, who had blonde hair and blue eyes.

Greenfield later learned what likely happened to her, saying: "I found out what Mengele did to the young, blonde girls. They practiced on them."

Greenfield rolled up his sleeve and showed Beck the tattoo the Nazis branded him with, saying he will never forget what happened to him, or the place where he lost almost all of his family.

Holocaust survivor Martin Greenfield, whose book "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor" is available now, appears on The Glenn Beck Program November 17, 2014. (Photo: TheBlaze TV)

Before Greenfield was separated from his father, his father told him: "If you survive, honor us by living, not by feeling sorry for us."

Those words never left Greenfield, a man who had every reason to become bitter and hopeless, but went on to become one of the most accomplished men in his field. He worked his way from the ground-up as a tailor, and has dressed presidents from Eisenhower to Barack Obama, and celebrities from Paul Newman to the cast of "Boardwalk Empire."

Greenfield recalled the day he "became human again," after being one of the few to survive both Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He had planned to kill the mayor's wife, who had ordered that he be whipped after seeing him sneak a bite of rotten rabbit food from the floor.

But when he got to her house, she was holding her child -- just as his mother had been when the Nazis separated her from her family.

"All of the sudden, that was when I became human again," he said. "That was the day after the liberation, where I became the kid that was brought up by my parents to believe in God, never to kill anybody, only to teach them and show them passion that I was taught by God."

Greenfield said that was when he knew he wanted to work with people, and "instill in them something that was taught to me, to be a person and respect somebody else."

"I thank God that my parents brought me up the right way, and from then on, I educated myself and I worked hard," he said, recalling how he "read every book about America" and eventually became an American citizen.

Beck praised Greenfield for "choosing hope in a completely hopeless situation," and encouraged everyone to read the man's book: "Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents' Tailor."

See part of the interview, below:

Complimentary Clip from TheBlaze TV

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