Holocaust survivor promised to kill his tormentor - what happened when they came face to face?

Martin Greenfield was only fifteen years old when he and his family were sent to Auschwitz and later Buchenwald. He endured brutal and horrific conditions, coming face with some of the worst Nazis of all time including Dr. Mengele. The Nazis beat him, starved him, and tortured him. To survive, he nearly lost his humanity.

At one point, while working for the local mayor, Greenfield stole the rotten food being fed to to the rabbits. When the mayor's wife found out, she had him beaten. He swore revenge, but something changed when they next came face to face. He shared the story with Glenn on his TV show Monday night.

"I worked in ammunition factory in Buchenwald, and then they took 15 people [to the mayor's house]. I was strong enough, so I was one of them, because the mayor’s house was bombed, that we should clean it up. So I went to work hard," he said.

Among the wreckage of the house, Greenfield came across live rabbits in cages that had survived the bombing.

"Carrying to the lady there with a baby, the mayor’s wife, I guess she was, to see, this is your white rabbit with the cage. A piece of crumb fell. We didn’t eat nothing. I survived maybe because I grew up on a farm. I knew what I could eat when I found grass or something that is edible. And I took the piece of thing to bite from the floor."

"She’s a Nazi. She tells the Gestapo I ate up the food from the rabbits instead of saying thank you for the rabbits," he said. Greenfield was subsequently beaten by the Gestapo.

Greenfield swore that he would kill the woman after what she did to him.

After the liberation, Greenfield and some other boys got a gun and went after her. But something happened when he saw her standing with her baby.

"When I came with a machine gun with my friend, and when I saw the kid and I saw her, all of a sudden that was when I became human again," Greenfield said.

"That was the day after the liberation where I became the kid that was brought up by my parents to believe in God, never to kill anybody, only to teach them and show them passion that was taught to me by God that I should never kill anybody. I never used a gun in my life."

"That day I was human again because of that woman."

Correction: This story originally referred to Martin Greenfield as Martin Green. It has been corrected. 

Read the transcript of the full interview below:

Glenn: Now, I want to introduce you to a man who chose hope in a completely hopeless situation and won. We were just sitting here in the break, and he was talking about how he is a servant at heart. He just wants to serve and make things better. His name is Martin Greenfield. He was 15 years old when his family was sent to Auschwitz, and he has a brand-new book out called The Measure of a Man. What a pleasure to meet you.

Martin: The pleasure is mine.

Glenn: Just a pleasure. The audience is going to be so excited to hear the rest of the story on your life, but let’s start at the beginning. You’re 15 years old. You met Mengele. You saw Mengele, and your family was separated. Can you tell me just a little bit?

Martin: I could tell you exactly what happened. When we arrived in Auschwitz from the ghetto at night on Saturday night locked in the cable car, you know, that we were with no bathrooms, nothing until we got there, the whole family together holding hands. My younger brother was four years old, and they sent me to put up as before I got there, so he held his older brother’s hand all night.

We got out, and I came in front of the man, and I looked at his boots, and I saw my picture, because you always as a kid look at the boots. Then I look up at the man, and the man moves me to the right. And then my mother and my brother she’s holding, he wants my mother to go to the right. My mother wouldn’t put down my brother. I let go of my brother’s hand. My mother took him to carry. My father to the right and everybody to the left, and I didn’t know nothing about Mengele or about ghettos. I was just barely 15 years old, not even 15, because it was March. August is when I would’ve been 15.

And I was a boy. I didn’t know about Gestapo or Mengele or the concentration camp, nothing. That was my feeling that minute. And then I was pushed to the right, and then my younger sister, she was blonde with blue eyes, and all of a sudden he put her to the right too. So three of us went to the right, and everybody, my grandfather, my grandmother, everybody on the left. I was on the right. Then we go to the right, and they take us to dress naked. And the guy comes over to shave my father and everybody when I was a kid.

And then they took us someplace, and they put the tattoos on my hand that I brought to show you anyway because I never let go of them. My number was 84406, no more name. My father was 84405, and my sister and they were so…but then I found out what Mengele did with the young blonde kids, that they practiced on them.

Glenn: So you go, you are in a horrific situation. Later…I hate to do this to your entire life. Please read this book, but let me just condense it down. There’s two things that I want to hit. One, you were at one point eating rotten food out of a rabbit cage, and the concentration or the mayor, his wife, caught you eating the food, correct?

Martin: Oh, you mean that was later the next in Buchenwald?

Glenn: Yes.

Martin: That was the worst thing that happened to me.

Glenn: And so you’re eating this, and she comes out.

Martin: Can you imagine? I work in ammunition factory in Buchenwald, and then they took 15 people. You know, I was strong enough, so I was one of them, because the mayor’s house was bombed, that we should clean it up. So I went to work hard. Me, they put in the basement to clean up the basement. It was bombed. The Americans bombed it because Roosevelt, whatever, because he made that deal with Stalin.

Glenn: Right. Right.

Martin: So I was there, and I cleaned up, and I find live rabbits. Can you imagine a boy saving, find something, like all of us know, saving any kind of life? Carrying to the lady there with a baby, the mayor’s wife, I guess she was, to see, this is your white rabbit with the cage. A piece of crumb fell. You know, we didn’t eat nothing. I survived maybe because I grew up on a farm. I knew which I could eat when I found grass or something that is edible. And I took the piece of thing to bite from the floor. She’s a Nazi. She tells the Gestapo I ate up the food from the rabbits instead of saying thank you for the rabbits. Can you imagine this, a woman, instead of saying you got my rabbits, so he should beat the crap out of me?

Glenn: Now here’s the turning point. There’s so much to this story that I really want you to please read this.

Martin: I’m going to tell you this whole story exactly what happened to me.

Glenn: We have to take a quick break, and I want you to tell me, because his life is truly amazing, and I want you to tell me the story, because you passed on an opportunity to hurt back, and then you’ve taken your life, and you have been with how many presidents now?

Martin: So you see this is what upset me a little bit.

Glenn: Hang on. Wait, don’t go into it yet. Just how many presidents have you been with?

Martin: I started Eisenhower liberated.

Glenn: Eisenhower.

Martin: Eisenhower liberated me in concentration camp. He came with his other general, and they saw the piles of bodies that they couldn’t burn. The Jews were on the bottom, and I was the only guy because the Czechs, they didn’t march me to death because of my Czech friends. They said you are a Czech. You’re not a Jew. Stay with us. So I was the only Jew the rabbi found. He was looking for a Jew. He said, “I’m a rabbi. Are you Jewish? I’m looking for a Jew.” I said I’m a Jew. I’m a Jew. Come over here, talk to me. So he came over and talked to me.

I said you’re not a rabbi. You’re Jewish. You’re a soldier. He says no, I’m a soldier rabbi. So I’m asking you one question. Can you do me a favor, not for me, for my 4-year-old brother that I know now that he was burned? Where was God? Not for me, because I might have sinned. Maybe I deserved to be here, but my four-year-old boy had no sins whatsoever. He didn’t live long enough. He could have been a rabbi like you. Why didn’t God help him?

He says I can’t answer you because I’m not prepared to answer your questions, so I started crying. I started crying because I said to him who am I going to ask? You’re the rabbi. You’ve got to help me, thinking because I believe in God, save me. So I’m not asking for myself. My brother could have been a rabbi like you. You don’t know what he would have become. God didn’t know yet because he didn’t sin yet. All of us maybe have a little sin. Whatever happened, God is a busy man. I understand that.

[break]

Glenn: We are having the greatest conversation. We’re going to have to continue this online because we have three and a half minutes, and you have to know what this man has done since, because he dresses the presidents. He dresses stars. He has made the suits for…I mean, this guy has gone on to do amazing things, but the best thing, let’s go back to the lady that when she had you beaten for stealing the food.

Martin: I am telling you that that lady that hurt me that I was going to shoot, I was going to kill, I was going to do everything—

Glenn: You threatened her.

Martin: But when I came with a machine gun with my friend, whatever, and when I saw the kid and I saw her, all of a sudden that was when I became human again. That was the day after the liberation where I became the kid that was brought up by my parents to believe in God, never to kill anybody, only to teach them and show them passion that was taught to me by God that I should never kill anybody. I never used a gun in my life.

I want to just deal with people and instill in them something that was taught to me to be a person that respects somebody else, not kill them, teach them how to become a person, believe in God like I do. And that day I was human again because of that woman.

Glenn: You went to her house. She was holding her baby.

Martin: I went to her, and I didn’t kill her. And I went a second time. The only thing I wanted to take her husband’s car, and I took the car. Who’s going to drive? I do everything. I found the car, and I drive it to the camp. It doesn’t matter. It’s just that I thank God that my parents brought me up the right way, and from then on, I educated myself, and I worked hard.

America, when I got that green card, I became an American like you and later a citizen. When I got my citizen papers, the guy questioned me with stupid questions, and I said can I ask you a few questions? He didn’t know about the Constitution. He didn’t know everything what I knew. I read every book about America. I says you’re supposed to work for me. I pay you. You should know more than me. I should have your job. You should have mine.

But this is what I became. This country, I thank the soldiers. I saw there that you read the letters, what I wrote in the post. I thank the soldiers. I wrote those letters. I wrote this letter about a woman. I wish other people would read the same thing and behave what I had the experience to go through.

Glenn: What happened to her? She died.

Martin: So thank you for having me.

Glenn: Oh my gosh, thank you. It is such an honor. It is really truly an honor.

Martin: The honor is mine.

Glenn: I want you to read this book, The Measure of a Man. You have to know this man’s story. We’ve only touched the surface. Thank you. God bless you.

A Sharia enclave is quietly taking root in America. It's time to wake up.

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Sharia-based projects like the Meadow in Texas show how political Islam grows quietly, counting on Americans to stay silent while an incompatible legal system takes root.

Apolitical system completely incompatible with the Constitution is gaining ground in the United States, and we are pretending it is not happening.

Sharia — the legal and political framework of Islam — is being woven into developments, institutions, and neighborhoods, including a massive project in Texas. And the consequences will be enormous if we continue to look the other way.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

Before we can have an honest debate, we’d better understand what Sharia represents. Sharia is not simply a set of religious rules about prayer or diet. It is a comprehensive legal and political structure that governs marriage, finance, criminal penalties, and civic life. It is a parallel system that claims supremacy wherever it takes hold.

This is where the distinction matters. Many Muslims in America want nothing to do with Sharia governance. They came here precisely because they lived under it. But political Islam — the movement that seeks to implement Sharia as law — is not the same as personal religious belief.

It is a political ideology with global ambitions, much like communism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently warned that Islamist movements do not seek peaceful coexistence with the West. They seek dominance. History backs him up.

How Sharia arrives

Political Islam does not begin with dramatic declarations. It starts quietly, through enclaves that operate by their own rules. That is why the development once called EPIC City — now rebranded as the Meadow — is so concerning. Early plans framed it as a Muslim-only community built around a mega-mosque and governed by Sharia-compliant financing. After state investigations were conducted, the branding changed, but the underlying intent remained the same.

Developers have openly described practices designed to keep non-Muslims out, using fees and ownership structures to create de facto religious exclusivity. This is not assimilation. It is the construction of a parallel society within a constitutional republic.

The warning from those who have lived under it

Years ago, local imams in Texas told me, without hesitation, that certain Sharia punishments “just work.” They spoke about cutting off hands for theft, stoning adulterers, and maintaining separate standards of testimony for men and women. They insisted it was logical and effective while insisting they would never attempt to implement it in Texas.

But when pressed, they could not explain why a system they consider divinely mandated would suddenly stop applying once someone crossed a border.

This is the contradiction at the heart of political Islam: It claims universal authority while insisting its harshest rules will never be enforced here. That promise does not stand up to scrutiny. It never has.

AASHISH KIPHAYET / Contributor | Getty Images

America is vulnerable

Europe is already showing us where this road leads. No-go zones, parallel courts, political intimidation, and clerics preaching supremacy have taken root across major cities.

America’s strength has always come from its melting pot, but assimilation requires boundaries. It requires insisting that the Constitution, not religious law, is the supreme authority on this soil.

Yet we are becoming complacent, even fearful, about saying so. We mistake silence for tolerance. We mistake avoidance for fairness. Meanwhile, political Islam views this hesitation as weakness.

Religious freedom is one of America’s greatest gifts. Muslims may worship freely here, as they should. But political Islam must not be permitted to plant a flag on American soil. The Constitution cannot coexist with a system that denies equal rights, restricts speech, subordinates women, and places clerical authority above civil law.

Wake up before it is too late

Projects like the Meadow are not isolated. They are test runs, footholds, proofs of concept. Political Islam operates with patience. It advances through demographic growth, legal ambiguity, and cultural hesitation — and it counts on Americans being too polite, too distracted, or too afraid to confront it.

We cannot afford that luxury. If we fail to defend the principles that make this country free, we will one day find ourselves asking how a parallel system gained power right in front of us. The answer will be simple: We looked away.

The time to draw boundaries and to speak honestly is now. The time to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land is now. Act while there is still time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why do Americans feel so empty?

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Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

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When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

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Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

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Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.