Teen raises funds to send Holocaust survivor to Israel for his bar mitzvah, finally

When Holocaust survivor, 89-year-old Henry Oster spoke at Viewpoint High School in Calabasas, California, 17-year-old Drew Principe was fascinated.  He spoke with the elderly Jewish man after the assembly and presented him with a gift - a bracelet inscribed with a Jewish prayer he himself had bought on a trip to Israel several years earlier. Oster was overwhelmed with the gift, and admitted that he had never been to Israel.

The two kept in touch. Principe learned that Oster was detained by the Nazis just a few weeks before his bar mitzvah and spent time in Auschwitz. After the camp was liberated in 1945, he tracked down one of his few remaining relatives, an uncle in California. At 17, he was adopted by that uncle and began a new life in America. He never did get his bar mitzvah.

The man's story bothered Principe, and he decided to act. He wrote a letter explaining his dream of sending Oster to Israel and sent it to family and friends. They in turn spread the word. Over $15,000 was raised to cover Oster's travel expenses.

Principe didn't stop there. He learned that Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, had listed Oster as a victim of the Holocaust, not as a survivor. He contacted them and set the record straight.

When Oster travels to Israel this summer, Yad Vashem will conduct an official ceremony to change his status to that of a survivor. Plus, he will finally celebrate his bar mitzvah, attended by his last living relative in Israel.