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I wasn’t supposed to see the shrunken old man speaking before me. I had other family obligations that couldn’t be broken.

And yet, as he started speaking in a very thick accent, I couldn’t pull myself away.

He could barely pull himself over the pulpit, it seemed. But his message surely belied his physical height.

He spoke confidently in his pale blue suit, without notes. Alter talked about that day when he was 13 when they broke into his life. He talked about how they ended his public school education and two years later, how he was taken away from his family.

For more than 1,000 days, they held Alter Wiener captive in more than one camp. Sadistic German officers routinely tortured and beat him.

But despite the physical and mental scars that still remain with his 82-year-old, Alter Wiener continues to speak out. He speaks to anyone who will listen about tolerance and prejudice, about how you can find good and bad with any people.

The effect has been tremendous. Kids write him and tell him they will stay in school. After listening to him, others have changed their plans about suicide.

Reluctantly, I rose up midway through his presentation at the LDS Church here and left to fulfill my obligations. I had to go, despite thinking up every excuse not to. He wrote the book “From a Name to a Number,” not for fame or fortune, but to fulfill a promise to get his story on paper.

But even that one hour made me a better person.

That’s what listening to a Holocaust survivor can do for you.

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