They met in a Nazi labour camp. They were reunited 79 years later at a memorial gala

Jack Waksal was attending a Holocaust memorial gala in South Florida when he noticed a man who looked familiar. 

He couldn't quite place him at first. Then the man, Sam Ron, got up on stage to deliver a speech and spoke of his time in the Nazi labour camp in Pionki, Poland.

That's when a light bulb went off in Waksal's head. Not only did he know Ron, but the pair worked together nearly 80 years ago, shovelling coal in Pionki so their Nazi captors could make munitions for the war. 

When Ron's speech was over, Waksal went over to his old friend's table and told him who he was.

"He got up and I kissed him, you know, and I said, 'It's so good that somebody else survived from my camp,'" Waksal, 97, told As It Happens guest host Dave Seglins. "Then he grabbed me. You know, we kissed each other. That's how he reacted. It was unbelievable."

Ron, 97, was guest of honour at the March 20 gala, hosted by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was being recognized for a lifetime of educating people about the horrors of the Holocaust. His wife, children and grandchildren were all at his side when Waksal came running over.

"He jumped out of the seat, ran over to me and hugged me and said, 'Oh, you're my brother, my brother!'" Ron said. "It was amazing."

Life in a Nazi labour camp

When the two reunited in the ballroom, they were happy, dressed to the nines and celebrating with their families. It was a far cry from the last time they'd seen each other.

Waksal and Ron — then known as Shmuel Rakowski — were both taken from their Polish towns by the Nazis and ended up at the Pionki munitions camp in 1943, at the peak of the Second World War. 

The two teenagers worked in the same location every day for a year, shovelling coal for hours and hours with no reprieve. It was strenuous, dirty work, and Waksal says their Nazi captors didn't seem to think of them as human. 

"Terrible is not the word," Waksal said. "Sometimes it was 24 hours [of working]."

The pair barely had time to eat and sleep, let alone get to know each other. They spoke very little. Nevertheless, both described their relationship as incredibly close — a kind of unspoken bond, forged in hardship.

"I was with him all the time, together," Waksal said.

They say finding each other again after these years, when there are so few Holocaust survivors left, was nothing short of a miracle. 

"I had so many people, others that I met, you know, even in the same camp — but they're all gone, all gone by now," Ron said.

Ron lost his brother in the Holocaust. Waksal lost both parents, two sisters and a brother — making him the lone survivor in his family.

"There's a lot of hard memories," Waksal said. "I got a lot of friends from my own city [who were] working together [in the labour camps]. They did not survive. They never came back."

The Pionki camp was dismantled in 1944, and its prisoners were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Oranienburg, Germany.

Before he could be shipped away, Waksal decided to make a run for it, escaping his captors and hiding in the forest with other escaped Jews. 

Ron, meanwhile, was taken to Sachenhausen. In 1945, the Nazis sent him on a three-week death march. It was on that journey that he was liberated by American troops. 

The two men's lives followed a surprisingly similar path after the war. Both eventually got married, had families and settled in Ohio — Ron in Canton and Waksal in Dayton. Both later retired in Florida — Ron in Boca Raton and Waksal in Bal Harbour. 

And most importantly, both became Holocaust educators, traveling to schools and events to speak about what happened to them.

It's work they remain passionate about.

"It should never happen again in life to people," Waksal said of the Holocaust. "Anyone in the world should never go through this life what the Jewish people went through in the Second World War."

Ron says their message is more important than ever, especially with so few Holocaust survivors left to share their stories.

"For 40 years I'm talking, hoping for peace, for security. So far,  it didn't happen yet. You know, the world gets worse every year. And we still keep talking about it," Ron said.

"I hope that the newer generation does better than the rest, that we'll have some peace, hope, and eliminate evil in this world."

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Interview with Jack Waksal produced by Kevin Robertson.