NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There are incredible people living all around us in middle Tennessee. Some neighbors have just sat down to hear the story of a friend who lived a rare piece of history.
"How did this all happen?" Ben Alalouf asked, flipping through a family album of pictures. "How did all that good fortune come to me? I have no idea, and I think about it all the time."
It has been one extraordinary life for Ben. His story takes place over thousands of miles of the world. His story's so extraordinary that when he tells it, people tend to gather and listen.
"My story begins in April 1941, Yugoslavia," Ben said, speaking to a crowd.
This was, of course, months before America's entry into World War II. During Hitler's invasion into Yugoslavia, Ben was born in a bomb shelter.
"My father went to the front line, got a doctor at gunpoint, and brought him to the shelter to deliver me," Ben told the crowd.
A Jewish family, they fled to Albania and later to Italy. In their travels, they encountered a German patrol officer. The officer picked up Ben, still a small child, calling him a good German baby.
"What the German officer did not know was I had a t-shirt on," Ben said. "The t-shirt had the star of David on there. He's holding his hand right there, and my mother's holding her breath. All he had to do was move that hand, conversation would have been over. He finally put me down, and I crawled back."
His family eventually made their way onto a ship to the United States. After three weeks at sea, the Statue of Liberty came into view.
"You never see so many people on their knees and crying and praying," Ben said. "That ship could have tipped over, the way everybody ran to the front to look at the Statue of Liberty."
Ben's family was among the 982 to come to a Jewish refugee camp in Oswego, New York. Ben remembers the constant snow.
"I remember playing with friends," he smiled. "I remember people throwing things over the fence. That was like a luxury. I got a three wheeler! I couldn't believe it. I cannot say enough for the people of Oswego. The camp was wonderful because we were in America."
Ben remembers the day a woman knocked on their door.
"My mother was beaming already," he said.
The woman was Eleanor Roosevelt.
"She was the president's wife!" Ben said. "She wanted to make sure that we were being treated well, that we had food, medical supply."
After the end of the war, President Truman allowed the refugees of the camp in Oswego to stay in the US. Ben's family made a life in Brooklyn.
"The apartment that was had was mice infested," he laughed, remembering the home his family moved into in Brooklyn. "The subway would run right by, but that was home!"
Ben's audience for his story was his neighbors in the Lake Providence community of Mount Juliet. They hold events for neighbors to share their stories. The idea is no matter where you live, you never know who could be living nearby. Sometimes it's someone with an extraordinary life.
