Holocaust jacket, prisoner’s story, found at New York tag sale

Curators there not only put the jacket on display but also unearthed the story of the person who wore it: a teenager who was forced to make munitions for the German war effort, spent four years in a relocation camp and then came to America, never telling his children much about Dachau or that he kept the jacket.

The story of Benzion Peresecki — who later became Ben Peres — is told in extraordinary detail, thanks largely to the serial number and careful records he kept and that his daughter found long after he died.

Holocaust historians say jackets such as the one saved by Peres are fairly rare, since most of the clothing worn by concentration camp prisoners was burned because of lice and other potential diseases.

Cary Lane, curator of the exhibit, said Peresecki was spared when Nazis invaded his Lithuanian homeland because he was 15; all Jews 16 and older, including his father and 17-year-old brother were executed.

Peres spent four years in a “displaced persons” camp, where he was reunited with his mother and earned a high school equivalency diploma.