Despite all the hardships Arthur Schwartz faced during the war, he remains until this day a happy man. Greeting me with a big smile, I knew my portrait session with him was going to be one where I ended up with many great photographs. Arthur, an impeccable dresser, told me he was never married, but has a long time girlfriend. A survivor herself, she had gone out shopping in order to avoid any discussion of the Holocaust. Arthur, whose Hebrew name is Oyzer, was born in Tuszyn-Lodz, Poland in 1926. Thirteen years later, in 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Mr. Schwartz and his family were given barely four hours to leave their home and move into the ghetto that was mandated for Jews. Throughout the course of the war, Arthur was sent to many concentration camps including Posen, which was the first Nazi camp in occupied Poland, as well as Auschwitz, where he was tattooed with the Number 141522. Arthur told me that the last camp he was in, called Mauthausen, was worse than Auschwitz. Of the 200,000 prisoners that passed through Mauthausen, Austria, only 80,000 survived. Most died from starvation, disease and other hardships of labor, including carrying heavy stones on their back up what they called the 186 stair "Staircase of Death". This camp was the last to be liberated by the Allies. Fortunately, he survived, while enduring many beatings, starvation, and freezing temperatures. Mr. Schwartz weighed 75 pounds when he was liberated. He recuperated in the home of an Austrian woman, who fed him large amounts of oatmeal, which made him 25 pounds heavier in a matter of weeks. Arthur, who originally came from a family of five brothers and four sisters, managed to locate 2 surviving brothers after the war and emigrated to Italy and then the United States. Arriving in New York, Arthur had a career working at Isaac Gellis Delicatessen, a famous Kosher market where he made frankfurters. He joked about how eating too much sausage gave him high cholesterol. Arthur was able to overcome the challenges of the Holocaust through his attitude that "life must go on", and his strong Faith. He shared that his ability to enjoy life and be a happy person is his personal victory over the Nazis. Future generations should know what happened to the Jews, Arthur said, so that genocides like the Holocaust can never happen again. He also stressed the importance of smiling. One can see by his contagious smile, he sets a really good example for all those he encounters.