Ms. Satarino’s eighth grade literature classes were privileged to listen to a presentation by Mr. Mike Jacobs, President of the Holocaust survivors in Dallas and founder of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies. The students would have normally heard Mr. Jacobs’ presentation during their field trip to the Holocaust Memorial, but unfortunately he was not speaking that day. Once contacted by Ms. Satarino, Mr. Jacobs gladly agreed to come to St. Elizabeth School to recount his experiences in Nazi prison camps.

Mike Jacobs was born in 1925 in the small Polish town of Konin, a town whose Jewish community dated back to 1397. Mike's given name was Mendel Jakubowicz. After he changed it to English he also uses the full name "Michael".

On September 1, 1939, the Nazi Army invaded Poland. Two months later, Jacobs and his entire family were herded into cattle cars and moved to the ghetto in Ostrowiec. His parents, two brothers and two sisters were murdered in the Treblinka death camp. Another brother was later killed while fighting the Nazis with the partisans.

Jacobs was sent to the camp Ostroweic and subsequently transported to Auschwitz (Poland), Birkenau (Poland), Mathausen-Gusen II (Austria). Americans liberated him from Mathausen-Gusen II on May 5, 1945. Refusing to remain in a DP (Displaced Persons) Camp, Jacobs worked as a shop keeper in Western Europe, studied physical education in Germany and taught sports to Jewish refugees and German children before receiving his papers to emigrate to the United States in 1951.
Jacobs has volunteered extensively as a lecturer on the Holocaust and has appeared before high schools, churches, civic groups and universities. He is founder and past president of the Holocaust survivors in Dallas and is founder of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies dedicated to the memory of the 11 million souls - 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews - who perished at the hands of the Nazis from 1939 -1945.

Jacobs and his wife, Ginger Chesnick Jacobs, a native Dallasite, have four children. Jacobs is the founder of Jacobs Iron and Metal Company, Inc., from which he retired in the 1990s.

His speeches focus on his experience during the Holocaust and, thereafter, as a survivor.

Themes included are:
What one human can do to another
Don't take freedom for granted
How beautiful it is to be free

Mr. Jacobs continues to be an enthusiastic speaker and a dedicated member of the Dallas Jewish community.