Nissen Mangel

Nissen Mangel

Nissen Mangel was born in Bratislava, Slovakia, and spent his earliest years in a warm, observant home — a childhood of faith, family, and ritual until the Nazi invasion shattered it.

In 1944, at just ten and a half, Nissen was deported to Auschwitz with his family, becoming one of the camp’s youngest prisoners. There, he survived selections and several face-to-face encounters with Dr. Josef Mengele. On the ramp, Mengele demanded his age; Nissen answered as an adult. Later, in the clinic, when doctors prepared him for an “experiment,” he refused to submit — locking eyes with Mengele and protesting. Mengele hesitated, then turned and walked away.

He went on to endure four more concentration camps and a winter death march before liberation in early 1945. He was the only member of his family to survive Auschwitz.

In the years that followed, Nissen rebuilt a life from the ruins — becoming a rabbi, scholar, and teacher devoted to passing on both the history and the responsibility that comes with it.

Decades later, for his 90th birthday, he returned to Auschwitz with about 100 family members — his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren — standing together on the same tracks where he had once arrived alone.