94-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Who Kicked COVID-19 Is Freed from Quarantine: 'This Was a Miracle'

Steve Warren
04-30-2020

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Here's a note to the producers of the hit CBS-TV series "Survivor": Some folks in New Jersey would like to bestow the title of this year's honor of "Ultimate Survivor" to a 94-year-old man who survived not only the Holocaust but also a bout with COVID-19. 

Walking down a red carpet on Tuesday, Jack Holzberg was met with cheers by the staff of the CareOne nursing home in Whippany as he was released from quarantine.  

The New York Post reports Holzberg was diagnosed with COVID-19 in mid-April and treated at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York before he was moved to the nursing home in New Jersey to quarantine until he was healthy enough to return home. 

"The fact that he's still here after all that he's been through and that he was able to survive this, it's amazing," said granddaughter Erica Wasserman.

Holzberg was a teenager in Poland when Germany invaded the country in 1939, igniting World War II. He spent most of the war in several German concentration camps, and most of his family were killed during the genocide.

After the war, Holzberg immigrated to the US with a surviving brother, settling in New York.  He taught himself English and built a successful clothing business, according to the Post.

He was diagnosed with the coronavirus about the middle of April, according to Wasserman.

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"When we heard about the diagnosis we were all scared, but this was a miracle," said Wasserman.

After leaving the rehab facility, Holzberg returned home and was reunited with his wife Betty. The couple has been married for 68 years.

Wasserman told the Post the 75th anniversary of her grandfather's liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria will be on May 6.

Throughout his ordeal, the survivor stayed positive, Wasserman said.

"Through this whole thing, we would FaceTime with him, his face would just light up, his family is definitely number one," she added.

Watch Holzberg walk the red carpet on the day his quarantine ended below. 

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of
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