“Jack and Sam”: Two Holocaust Survivors Reunite 80 Years Later

In March of 2022, Sam Ron was speaking about his experience as a Holocaust survivor at an event for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in South Florida. At the podium, the Polish Jew mentioned his birth name, Shmuel Rakowski, and the fact that he was a prisoner at the Pionki labor camp.

Suddenly, Jack Waksal, another Polish survivor at the dinner, perked up.

“Instantly, I recognized his face,” Jack said. “I couldn’t believe it, that I see somebody from my camp. A survivor.”

Once Sam got off stage, Jack came running over to him.

“You my brother!” Jack said, hugging Sam. “You my brother!”

It turns out, the two survivors were both at Pionki labor camp in Poland, where they were teenagers at the time. The dinner happened in Florida 80 years later, where they were reunited.

In a new documentary called “Jack and Sam,” filmmaker Jordan Matthew Horowitz tells the story of this heartwarming friendship that picked up right where it left off eight decades prior.

Meeting in the Camp

Sam was born 20 miles north of Krakow in 1924, and when World War II broke out, he and his family lived in a nearby barn for three months. To avoid being found, they smuggled themselves into the Krakow ghetto and lived there until it was emptied out.

Eventually, he ended up at Pionki labor camp, the largest ammunition factory in Poland. The first thing the guards did was take him to the showers, which could have been the gas chambers – he and the other Jews around him had no idea which one they were in.

“When you go in that shower room, you don’t know what’s going to come out of the spicket there – gas or water,” he said in the documentary. “Finally, water came out! There’s a Hebrew song called, ‘Mayim Chayim – Living Waters.’ We all started singing.”

But the conditions at Pionki were harsh. Sam said that hundreds of people died at the camp. He’d often wake up to find the person next to him dead. He’d go two weeks without food; people would eat the bark off trees to survive.

Jack was also born in 1924, but in Jedlinsk, Poland. After living in the Jedlinsk ghetto with his family, he was transferred to Krusziny, a forced labor camp. Jack almost died when he was told to kneel by a mass grave; he thought quickly and pulled a guard down with him into the grave, and then he quickly climbed out and ran towards the forest. But he wasn’t home free. Soon enough, he was sent to Pionki where he met Jack.

The two immediately became friends.

“Jack and I were very close buddies there,” Sam said.

“When we worked, we worked as a team, always,” Jack said in the documentary. “We help each other.”

Together, they’d unload coals from the train and make gunpowder.

“Every day, we’d work together,” Jack said.

Escaping Death

After about a year, Jack and Sam heard a rumor that the camp was going to be emptied out and everyone would be sent to Auschwitz, which likely meant death. Jack, who’d run to the forest previously, decided he was going to escape to it once again. When he went, he said goodbye to Sam who decided to stay behind.

Jack took 14 people with him, including his brother. As soon as they ran into the forest, the guards started shooting, and one person was killed right away. After laying low for two or three hours, Jack and the others dug a hole to hide in. They thought they were safe but soon they saw the guards again. One of the people in a nearby village must have told the guards, Jack thought.

Sadly, a guard shot and killed Jack’s brother.

“My brother got killed five weeks before the liberation,” Jack said. “I didn’t want to live anymore. I wanted to give up my life.”

Jack stayed in that forest from May of 1944 until January of 1945, when the Russians came in. Only six out of the 15 people survived.

Meanwhile, Sam and another man didn’t leave the camp. He had to spend another year there. Finally, on May 2, 1945, his nightmare was over, and he was free.

Rebuilding Their Lives

Jack and Sam both went to the United States and settled down in Ohio. Little did they know, they lived less than three hours from each other; Sam was in Akron, while Jack was in Dayton. They both got married and had children and grandchildren.

When they met at the Holocaust Museum dinner, they were well into their 90s. Their incredible story went viral in the media and Horowitz knew right away when he saw it that he wanted to make a film.

“I was completely blown away,” Horowitz said. “I called my producer and said, ‘This is our next film. I’m making this now.’ Because of their age, I didn’t want to stop to raise money or plan it out. I needed to get there immediately.”

He found Jack and Sam’s contact information through the Holocaust Museum, and two weeks to the day after he read the story, he was in South Florida, filming the men.

Filmmaker Jordan Matthew Horowitz

Horowitz said the experience was like, “witnessing a piece of history. When I was growing up, the Holocaust felt so far away. Seeing those survivors and being in the same room with them gave me a lot of perspective. The Holocaust wasn’t that far away.”

Being with Jack and Sam throughout the filming also gave the young filmmaker perspective on his life.

“I realized there are a lot of things I get stressed out about on a daily basis,” he said. “They’re so small compared to the horrendous things that Jack and Sam went through. And look how well they turned out.”

After working on the documentary for over a year and getting Julianna Margulies and Sarah Silverman to be executive producers on it, Horowitz premiered it at Florida State University, with Jack and Sam in the audience.

“At the premiere, Jack said something I’ll never forget: ‘This is the most important thing in my life,’” he said. “I thought he was playing it up for the audience, but then I asked his son about it. He told me, ‘My dad really believes that. He could never understand why he survived. He’d ask, why me? He carried this survivor’s guilt with him. But this film makes him feel like there was a purpose to everything he went through. It reinvigorated him.’”

Sadly, Sam passed away this past October, right after the war in Israel started, but he was also able to be at the screening before he died.

“It was such an amazing experience having Jack and Sam there together,” Horowitz said.

Jack is 99 and still going strong, and Horowitz has big hopes for his film, which has been screened at many film festivals across the country. Now, he wants to bring it into classrooms and educate people on the Jewish community.

“I want the film to be seen by as many people as possible to address antisemitism and give people this history that we don’t have anymore in America,” he said. “My hope is that by listening to survivors, seeing what they’ve had to endure and seeing the types of people they’ve become, they will change their minds.”

To inquire about screening “Jack and Sam,” email Jordan at JackandSamFilm@Gmail.com