While millions perished under the Nazi regime across Europe, a handful of survivors emerged to share their testimonies and, in many cases, to build celebrated careers in film, literature, and beyond. These 10 amazing celebrities not only endured the horrors of the Holocaust but also went on to shape popular culture and keep history alive.
10 Amazing Celebrities Who Survived the Holocaust
Robert Clary, originally born Robert Max Wilderman in Paris in 1926, entered the entertainment world as a child prodigy, singing on French radio at age twelve. By 1942 the Nazi machine had transported him to the Ottmuth concentration camp in Poland, and shortly thereafter his forearm was marked with the tattoo “A5714” before he was shipped to Buchenwald. There, the SS forced him to perform a song for their troops every other Sunday – a grim gig that he later recalled as a key factor in his survival: “Singing, entertaining, and being in kind of good health at my age, that’s why I survived…”
Clary remained in Buchenwald until Allied forces liberated the camp on April 11, 1945. He was the sole survivor of thirteen family members sent to the camps; twelve were murdered at Auschwitz. After the war he returned to Paris, discovered three surviving siblings, and promptly resumed his performing career. Tours in the United States led him to meet Eddie Cantor, who would become his father‑in‑law, and he later achieved worldwide fame as Corporal Louis LeBeau on the TV series Hogan’s Heroes.
9 Meyer Gottlieb—Producer
Meyer Gottlieb entered the world just after Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939. His earliest memories of the conflict are stark: “I have no memories of joyous events. The first real memories of a childhood I have are after I came to America.” His family fled eastward, eventually finding themselves in a Ukrainian labor camp. As a toddler, he recalled his father cradling his infant brother in a tallit and slipping him out of the camp for a proper burial.
Later, Gottlieb remembered his father, a Polish Army officer, boarding a black bus to fight the Germans – a sight he never saw again. After four years of war, the family was moved to a displaced‑persons camp in the U.S. sector of occupied Germany. Emigrating to America, Meyer produced blockbusters such as Master and Commander and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, eventually rising to become president of Samuel Goldwyn Films.
8 Imre Kertész—Novelist
Born in Budapest in 1929, Imre Kertész attended a segregated boarding school for Jewish youths. In 1944, at fourteen, he was rounded up with fellow Hungarian Jews and shipped to Auschwitz. He was soon transferred to Buchenwald, where he claimed to be sixteen and a laborer to avoid immediate execution – a ruse that saved his life. He survived until Buchenwald’s liberation the following year.
After the war, Kertész completed high school in 1948 and worked as a journalist, only to lose his position when his newspaper fell under communist control. He turned to writing, producing seventeen books. His most renowned novel, Fatelessness, follows a fifteen‑year‑old boy’s ordeal in Buchenwald, Auschwitz, and a camp called Leitz, and was later adapted for the screen. In 2002, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for “writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.”
7 Ivan Klíma—Playwright
Ivan Kauders, later known as Ivan Klíma, was born in Prague in 1931 and grew up unaware of his Jewish ancestry. When the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938, his father was sent to the Theriesenstads concentration camp in November 1941, followed a month later by his mother. The family remained there until the Red Army liberated the camp in May 1945. Theriesenstads was a holding camp that routinely shipped its inmates to Auschwitz, yet the Klíma family survived its four‑year ordeal.
After the war, the Soviet‑backed Czech regime drew Klíma into its communist fold. He channeled his camp experiences into his writing, describing them as “the liberating power that writing can give.” A prolific playwright and professor at the University of Michigan, Klíma earned honors such as the Magnesia Litera award and the Franz Kafka Prize.
6 Curt Lowens—Actor
Curt Lowens, born Curt Löwenstein in Olsztyn, Poland, in 1925, moved with his family to Berlin as the Nazis rose to power, seeking refuge among the city’s sizable Jewish community. Soon after, the family fled to the Netherlands, hoping to board a ship to the United States. The German invasion halted those plans, and for two years the Lowens managed to avoid deportation. In 1943, however, Curt and his mother were captured and sent to the Westerbork transit camp, only to be released through his father’s connections. The family then went underground.
During the next two years of hiding, Lowens and his mother worked with Dutch rescuers, saving roughly 150 Jewish children under false identities. He also rescued two downed U.S. Army airmen, earning a commendation from General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After the Netherlands was liberated, he served as a translator for the Allies and helped capture remaining Nazi officials. Post‑war, Lowens emigrated to the United States, studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio, and appeared in over one hundred films and television shows.
5 Branko Lustig—Producer
Branko Lustig entered the world in 1932 to a Croatian Jewish family in what is now Croatia. Though his parents were not observant, his grandparents attended synagogue regularly. His childhood remained peaceful until the war erupted, when he was seized as a boy and shipped to Auschwitz and later Bergen‑Belsen. The majority of his family perished, but his mother survived, and the two were reunited after liberation. Weighed down to a frail 66 lb. and battling typhoid, Lustig credited his survival to a German officer from his hometown who recognized his father’s name and intervened.
Recovering after the war, Lustig launched a film career in 1955, initially with a state‑run studio in Zagreb. He later contributed to productions such as The Fiddler on the Roof (1971). His work on Schindler’s List earned him an Academy Award, and a second Oscar followed for his role in Gladiator. Throughout his long career, Lustig remained a respected producer and executive producer until his death in 2019.
4 Roman Polanski—Director
Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933 to a Jewish family, but the family moved to Kraków in 1936. When Germany invaded Poland, the Polanski family was forced into the Kraków Ghetto. Roman began primary school at six, only to be expelled within weeks when all Jewish children were removed. The Nazis soon required Jews to wear the blue Star of David, and soon after, his parents were deported to concentration camps.
Polanski escaped the Kraków Ghetto in 1943, surviving the rest of the war with the aid of Polish Catholics. He memorized Catholic prayers to pass as a Catholic, though his lack of catechism knowledge occasionally threatened his cover. After the war, he pursued a filmmaking career in Poland, eventually earning an Academy Award. In later years, his fame was shadowed by controversy surrounding his personal life, which has kept him from returning to the United States.
3 Leon Prochnik—Screenwriter
Leon Prochnik entered the world in 1933 to a Jewish family that owned Poland’s second‑largest chocolate factory. By 1939, the Nazi occupation forced the family to flee, prompted by a telegram from a worker warning that the Nazis were hunting his father. Their odyssey spanned Lithuania, Russia, Japan, Canada, and finally the United States. Upon arrival, U.S. Customs detained the family, a stark reminder that “America would not let Jewish refugees in at that point; it was not a very proud moment in America’s history.”
After finally settling in New York, Prochnik recalled his first night of peace as “the first night I remember sleeping without my fists being clenched.” He later earned a degree, entered the film industry, and wrote the screenplay for the cult classic Child’s Play. He also directed, edited, and produced short films throughout his career.
2 Ruth Westheimer—Sex Therapist
Karola Ruth Siegel was born in June 1928 in Wiesenfeld, Germany, into an Orthodox Jewish family that practiced their faith devoutly. In January 1939, to escape the looming Nazi threat, she was sent to an orphanage in Heiden, Switzerland. Before that, she witnessed her father’s arrest during the 1938 Kristallnacht. At the orphanage, she tended to younger children and, despite being barred from school, received clandestine books from a fellow orphan to continue learning.
Both of Ruth’s parents fell victim to the Holocaust—her father perished at Auschwitz in 1942, and her mother died sometime during the war, though the exact circumstances remain unknown. After the war, Ruth emigrated to Palestine at seventeen, joined the Haganah as a scout and sniper, and was wounded in the 1947‑49 Arab‑Israeli conflict. Later she moved to France and finally settled in the United States, where she became the world‑famous sex therapist known as Dr. Ruth. Even into her nineties, she continued to appear on shows like The View and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
1 Simon Wiesenthal—Writer & Nazi Hunter
Simon Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, in what is now Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine. His family had fled the Russian Empire three years earlier to escape pogroms. His father died on the Eastern Front during World War I in 1915, leaving Simon, his younger brother Hillel, and their mother Rosa to survive on their own. After graduating high school in 1928, Wiesenthal worked as a factory supervisor in Lwów until the German invasion in 1939. The city changed hands, first annexed by the Soviets and then seized by the Nazis in 1941.
Wiesenthal was first imprisoned in the Lwów Ghetto, then transferred with his wife to the Janowska concentration camp. He survived multiple near‑deaths, escaped a liquidation, was recaptured, and finally liberated by Soviet forces, only to endure a death march that led him to Buchenwald and later Mauthausen. He survived until liberation in May 1945. The couple lost 89 relatives during the Holocaust. After the war, Wiesenthal became a famed Nazi hunter, instrumental in capturing Adolf Eichmann in 1959, and authored numerous memoirs chronicling his experiences.