The Boy Who Hid comes to Nashville

Holocaust survivor and photographer Laszlo Selly was a young boy during the Holocaust, and will be visiting Nashville this month, to share his moving and captivating story of resilience and survival. The event, “An Evening with Laszlo Selly,” will take place on May 19, 7:00 PM, at Chabad of Nashville. 

Selly survived the unimaginable; a genocide that claimed the lives of six million people just like him, and he’s hoping his words will prevent anything like that from ever happening again. Selly has close to 90 years of life under his belt. Some of those years were spent deprived of freedom, dignity, and nearly his very life. 

Selly and his twin brother were born in Budapest, Hungary, on December 31, 1937, into a middle-class, secular Jewish family. When Laszlo was six years old, he remembered his mother sewing a yellow star onto his outer garments. Desperate to keep their twins safe, Selly’s parents made the difficult decision to send them into hiding.  

His family was fortunate enough to have never stepped foot in a concentration camp. They survived that time in Budapest’s Jewish housing. But their lives secluded from the rest of the country weren’t much better than others in places like the Polish camps. 

Freedom was a distant memory. Their new reality was living crammed up in an apartment shared with three other families, where food was a luxury and so was your next breath. “It never became normal, things happened so fast and fear took over,” Selly said. “We realized at a very young age that people wanted to hurt us.” 

Every morning there was a new group of people lined up and executed in front of the entire neighborhood. And every morning Selly and his family prayed they wouldn’t be next. 

One night there was a knock on the door. When they answered, their hearts dropped. A Nazi soldier ordered them to be lined up outside by sunrise. They knew what that meant for their fate. The families spent the night hugging and praying that morning wouldn’t come. 

Just before sunrise, there was a loud banging at the door. All the families in the apartment gathered somberly but were shocked when the soldier on the other side was not a Nazi. They were informed that they had been liberated. There was shock, joy and relief running through their minds. It was over — almost. 

He plans to describe what he went through in honor of those who were killed in the Holocaust — and so that that the next generation can witness as people like himself share their life story. This will ensure that never again will anyone deny the Holocaust, and the six million Jewish people that were murdered, simply for being Jews. 

“These people will not be here any much longer,” Selly said. “Once they are gone, the holocaust deniers will come out and say it never happened.” 

Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel of the Chabad Jewish Center of Nashville invited Selly to come to Nashville and speak about his journey and years of horror, and his close brush with death, and his miraculous story of survival. “This is a very special opportunity for us all to hear his story, to personally hear the story of survival,” said Rabbi Tiechtel, “Somebody who survived the one of the worst times in our history, and in our memory.” 

The best way for us to prevent such atrocities from ever happening again, and the best way for us to honor the memory of those six million who were killed, is to know what happened, and to resolve to live more ethical and moral lives. 

“We need to remember there’s not many opportunities left, where we can meet somebody who survived the holocaust, somebody who survived the Final Solution perpetrated by the Nazis,” Rabbi Tiechtel expressed, “It is incumbent on us to ensure their stories will be told and heard by the next generation.” 

The event with Laszlo Selly will take place on Monday, May 19, at Chabad of Nashville, 95 Bellevue Road. There is limited seating for this special event. Tickets can be purchased at holocasutsurvivorsnashville.com or by Calling Chabad at 615-646-5750.