Holocaust survivor celebrates 100th birthday

[ Program w telewizji o 100-CB urodzinach Michala Zajaca, ojca Wladka, Lusi i Maryli Zajac, tescia Anny Frajlich. ]

WOBURN, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) – A man who escaped some of the worst evil the world has ever seen celebrated a milestone Saturday.

“I can’t believe it – I mean I look at these people and my family and it’s impossible,” said Michal Zajac.
Zajac turned 100 years old Saturday. His journey to 100 has not been an easy one; at 24 years old, he was captured by the Germans in Poland in 1939.
“The Germans, the soldiers – they (got) me on the street,” the Polish Jew explained, with his Yiddish accent.
The same determination that got Zajac to 100 got him out of captivity the same day he was enslaved.
“I sneak out of the building and I survived…it’s a risk. If no, they’ll send you to some places,” he said.
The Nazis took the rest of his family, and all except one brother and one cousin died in concentration camps or in the ghettos.

With his freedom, Zajac married and ran away to Russia before it was safe to go back to Poland at the end of World War Two. In 1970, at 55 years old, he decided it was time for a new adventure, and came to the U.S. He first lived in Brooklyn, New York and then moved to Boston, where his whole family currently resides.
This is all because he took a risk that saved his life and awarded him the chance to live it to the fullest.

“I feel like a young boy,” he said.
Even at 100, he is full of spirit; he was singing and celebrating his entire birthday party.
“He’s always looking in the future – he’s always planning ahead that’s what probably keeps him alive,” said his daughter, Lois Pogoda.
His secret to living to 100? Living a good life.

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