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VALLEY STREAM, Long Island (WABC) -- A Holocaust survivor and his wife were surprised with a wedding anniversary celebration on Wednesday.
Fred Zeilberger, 95, who survived five concentration camps, and his 89-year-old wife Elaine are celebrating 69 years of marriage.
They were surprised with a party at The Bristal at North Woodmere where they explained how they met.
"Jewish mother says, 'do you have a girlfriend?' I said 'not really,' so she gave me two numbers, she gave me Elaine's number, my wife's number, and another one -- the other one, I never called," Zeilberger said.
The couple was married at the Empire Hotel in 1956 and lived in Cedarhurst for 64 years before moving to the assisted living facility last October. They have three children and three grandchildren.
But before they started their happy life together, Zeilberger was exposed to horrors at the age of 9 in his hometown of Wurzburg, Germany.
"That's when the whole thing started, Kristallnacht, where all the Jewish businesses and houses of worship were destroyed," he said.
He was told to report to the railroad and was then taken to an extermination camp.
"Very few people survived and I'm one of them," Zeilberger said.
He went to five different camps, including three in Latvia and two in Poland. He said he worked to stay alive.
At the end of the war, he returned to Germany to learn his whole family was wiped out.
"I'm still wondering sometimes because nobody knows exactly what happened," he said.
And so he came to the U.S. as a war orphan and began working hard before he started dating Elaine.
"I came to the house with a pink convertible," he explained. "We went to a show in the city, and we went to the Copacabana and then she says she has to go home."
But he returned soon after -- again and again.
The couple is still adjusting to leaving their home of over 60 years, but in a life of survival, theirs is a marriage of give and take and never losing sight of the struggles that brought them there.
