For many people, their knowledge of the Holocaust begins and ends with concentration camps and gas chambers.

But for Manheim Township resident Michael Gleiberman, the Holocaust was intensely personal.

While Gleiberman and his immediate family survived the Nazi onslaught in their native Poland, members of his extended family were among the millions of Jews in Europe who were killed.

Gleiberman will speak about his experiences at 7 tonight at Lititz Public Library, 651 Kissel Hill Road, Lititz.

In an interview Wednesday, Gleiberman said "one tyrant saved my life from another tyrant. (Soviet leader Joseph) Stalin saved my life and my parents and siblings."

Gleiberman recounted his life in Pinsk — which was part of Poland after World War I, but is now part of Belarus — from the time he was 12 years old.

Between 1939 and 1941, when the Soviets occupied Pinsk, Gleiberman's life stayed much the same. Only the language he used in his schooling changed, he said.

But soon Gleiberman's life would be turned upside down.

"Life takes twists and turns that you don't plan, but things just happen," he said.

His family was ordered out of their home by the Soviets and moved to a nearby town, Janovo, where they lived with a farmer. Later, Gleiberman, his two sisters and father returned to Pinsk to find a place to live.

"Then one morning, I woke up and people were being taken to the train in horse carts," Gleiberman said.

His mother and younger brother already had been picked up and put on the train, bound for Siberia. His older sister and father decided to join them, but Gleiberman said he and his younger sister wanted to stay with their grandparents in Pinsk.

However, the People's Ministry of Internal Affairs — the precursor of the KGB — showed up looking for Gleiberman and his sister. Their grandparents at first attempted to hide them, but were advised at the last minute to let them go.

"If the NKVD hadn't shown up, I wouldn't be here to tell the story. I would have lost my life in Pinsk," Gleiberman said.

Shortly after he and his sister joined their parents on the train, Pinsk was overrun by the Nazis. Ten thousand Jews — including all of Gleiberman's extended family — were killed in one day.

Meanwhile, Gleiberman and his immediate family were en route to Siberia in a closed cattle car.

"Food was scarce," he said. "Occasionally, they'd give us buckets of soup with salty herring, which made us thirsty. But there was no water. We had to lower a bottle by a string to beg people at the stations for water."

They were dropped off at Barnaul, in south-central Russia, not far from Novosibirsk, before traveling south to the little village of Topolnoye, which was a lot like the village in "The Fiddler on the Roof," Gleiberman said.

The Gleibermans spent two years there before moving to Semey, Kazakhstan. They were no longer classified as "enemies of the people" by the Soviets.

After the war, they were sent to Stettin, Poland, before being smuggled into East Germany, then into Berlin and finally given clearance to emigrate to the United States.

In addition to Gleiberman's presentation at the Lititz Public Library, the annual Yom Ha'Shoah memorial program will be held at the Lancaster Jewish Community Center, 2120 Oregon Pike, at 7 p.m. Monday.

This year, Joseph Puder, an Israeli-American son of Holocaust survivors and a columnist for the Philadelphia Bulletin, will present the story of his family members who perished in the Holocaust. The event is free and open to the public.

E-mail: lvaningen@lnpnews.com