Holocaust survivor Menachem Tzur: "I went through hell, I just pray God for peace in our country"

Holocaust survivor Menachem Tzur, 99, spoke to Arutz 7 at the "Every Man Has a Name" ceremony and shared his difficult story from the Holocaust often shedding tears.

"The Germans took me to work on the ground, I worked hard, very hard, to roll the holes in the ground for tanks," he said. "The Nazis forced us to work and said, 'If you don't finish, you won't get a piece of bread.'"

Tzur, who was a young boy at the time, had trouble keeping up with the load, and his older siblings tried to help him as much as they could. "We were eight children – they were all killed, the Germans killed them while they were working hard."

During the conversation, his voice choked with tears over and over again. "I went through hell," he said. "I'm moved that I'm talking, I'm remembering the traumas I've gone through in life."

Despite the difficult memories, Tzur mentions the large family he built in Israel: "Today I have a large family, I have 18 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren, and there are also grandchildren who are in the army, I have a large family, and I also have sons-in-law who were in the regular army, they were lieutenant colonels, and I have all kinds of ranks that I don't remember exactly."

He came to the ceremony with his 92-year-old wife. "We've been married together for 72 years. We've been through hell all our lives, and I say thank God that we're still alive, and thank God that what I built with my wife together in our country, the people of Israel."

At the end of his remarks, he wanted to convey a message to the people of Israel: "I only ask God to give us a peaceful, quiet state, and for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the family, of the Jews, and for our entire country."

"I want, with God's help, when the time comes to leave this world, that I will see that there is peace in the country, and that we have a quiet country and a state that loves each other, and that we will be one people."