A young woman’s insistence on saving a man’s life at a Nazi concentration camp inadvertently led her to meet her future husband.
Now, the couple, who live in Toronto, are about to have their incredible love story feted on television across North America.
Howard Kleinberg was held prisoner at Bergen-Belsen during the Second World War. On the day the camp was liberated in April of 1945, according to an account he later wrote for a synagogue newsletter, he thought he was close to death and lay down amid a pile of corpses.
As he lay there, two women and a girl happened by and debated what to do. The girl insisted on helping the man, took him to an empty barracks and looked after him for weeks. One day, he crawled to a road, where he was picked up by British forces and taken to hospital.
The girl didn’t know where he was and, after he was discharged, he was unable to track her down.
Two years later, Mr. Kleinberg was living with relatives in Toronto when the very same girl – Nancy Baum – happened to arrive in the city. Not only did Mr. Kleinberg get to finally thank the woman who saved his life, but the pair fell in love and married in 1950.
Their tale will be featured on the syndicated talk show Live! with Regis and Kelly on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., as part of a week of the world’s greatest love stories. The show is broadcast in Canada on the CTV network.
