In the darkness of a sealed Bucharest apartment during World War II, Andre Kessler most remembers the sounds he heard as a tiny, Jewish toddler in hiding: his mother constantly telling him to be quiet while the squeals of other children playing outside seeped in through the blackened windows and covered doorjambs, or the marching of the Romanian Iron Guard, Nazi sympathizers who wore hobnail boots and who could easily threaten the lives of Kessler and his mother.

There were also the bombs.

RENEE' HANNANS HENRY/AJC (ENLARGE)

Andre Kessler at age 3

RELATED: Photos North Fulton news Georgia and metro news ABOUT THE BREMAN The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum explores the universal themes of respect for differences, responsible citizenship, human dignity and community building through the lens of the Jewish experience. Exhibits and services available at the museum include: "Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years, 1933 — 1945" "Creating Community: The Jews of Atlanta From 1845 to the Present" Community Archives and Genealogy Center Center for Holocaust Education A comprehensive resource library for educators, scholars and the media supporting archival, genealogical and Holocaust research, character education and heritage studies. -------------------- NOW ON DISPLAY "Seeking Justice: The Leo Frank Case Revisited" recounts the racially charged and tragic events surrounding the murder of Mary Phagan in 1913 and the lynching of Leo Frank two years later in Cobb County. National and local media covered the murders, which remain officially unsolved and controversial nearly a century later. The Breman Museum exhibition will be on display through the end of the year. Contact information:www.thebreman.org or 687-222-3700; the Breman is located at 1440 Spring St. N.W., Atlanta, at the intersection of Spring and 18th streets in the Selig Center.

"Since Romania was vital to the German war machine because of its oil fields, the area near the Parliament and King's Palace in Bucharest, near our apartment, was bombed by day by the Americans, the British by night, and ultimately the Russians who were coming in from the east," says Kessler, now 68.

One night, a bomb blew out one of the blackened windows in their building deemed vacant by the Romanian government, which had warned residents to flee the frequent shelling.

Kessler, then 3, and his mother, Olga, went into hiding for 18 months, protected by the gentile supervisor of their apartment building, who Kessler says also saved two other Jewish families. Georgeiu Popscu is now known as a "righteous gentile" or "someone who saved Jews during the Holocaust without seeking anything for himself." Popscu, Kessler said, provided the families with food, but made sure none of those in hiding knew about the others. He feared that if members of one family were discovered, they would be forced to reveal the whereabouts of the others.

Now a resident of east Cobb, Kessler is one of almost three dozen Holocaust survivors who tell their stories as emissaries from the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta. He spoke last week to about 500 members of the congregation of Cumming First United Methodist Church, where he received a standing ovation following his remarks.

"I am actually one of the youngest survivors now [in Georgia] and I travel the state to witness, with the hope that nothing like it will ever happen again," Kessler said.

"The oldest survivors are now in their 70s and 80s. We are losing them."

Kessler said there are at least 60 Web sites on the Internet that deny the Holocaust ever happened.

"It is important to carry on," he said. "There were 6 million Jews killed, but another 5 million gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, gays and others who were simply marked for death. The Nazis kept records. We can get the figures from their own records."

Hiding after father's arrest

Kessler and his mother went into hiding shortly after the 1942 arrest of his father, Ladislas Grunfeld, a well-known soccer player who had owned two men's shirt factories.

Kessler's father was taken to a slave labor camp in a region known as Transnistria. It is believed thousands of Jews perished in camps in the region. For 18 months he was held there and forced to dig ditches, shovel snow and make equipment repairs.

"My father was large," Kessler said. But a diet of thin soup and bread made primarily of sawdust had wrecked the 6-foot-4, 246-pound man Kessler remembered.

"When he was freed and finally returned, he weighed only 132 pounds. I hid behind Mother in fear when he came into our apartment. I did not recognize him."

During their time in hiding in Bucharest, Kessler and his mother lived in one tiny room of the family apartment near the bathroom, which provided water, when it was running. Food provided by Popscu consisted, largely, of cornmeal thinned by water.

Kessler's mother spent her days teaching her young son to read and write while, unbeknownst to them, other relatives on both sides of the family were being rounded up and shipped to Nazi death camps.

"My mother finally was able to count them up, when years later we arrived in America. In all she lost 120 relatives, primarily at Auschwitz — 80 percent of her family."

When Romania fell to Communist rule in 1947, the family fled. Ultimately, Kessler's parents divorced and his father stayed in Paris. Kessler and his mother were smuggled to Austria and later made their way to the United States via an old troop ship.

While in Austria, Kessler says he was forced to carry an identity card, which he held up and described for the Methodist congregation.

"Imagine — I was only 10 years old and had to carry a card that stated it was required for foreigners and stateless persons," Kessler said, "and we had to pay for it."

Height leads to hoops

In the United States, Kessler and his mother lived in a rough neighborhood in Queens. Kessler, like his father before him, is tall — 6-foot-5. And as an athletically talented kid who was able to fight, Kessler admits to getting into serious trouble.

"Just before I graduated high school, I was taken before a judge and given a choice: jail or the Navy," says Kessler. He chose the military and began a career as a corpsman.

Ultimately, he says, a coach at New York University, who had followed his sports prowess, worked for his release from the military and secured a basketball scholarship for Kessler at NYU.

After graduating from college, Kessler was drafted by the NBA and played two years for the Philadelphia Warriors (now the Golden State Warriors). There, he played alongside basketball icon Wilt Chamberlain.

"The team's traveling secretary would often book us into the same hotel room," says Kessler, "to put a Jewish kid and a black kid together. They thought it was an insult to both of us."

Ultimately, Kessler became a sales manager and in 1965 moved to Atlanta, married and raised two children.

Now, he averages two appearances a week for Holocaust education, often for schoolchildren. He wants people to know that during the Holocaust there were five types of people: victims, perpetrators, bystanders, rescuers and liberators.

"The overwhelming majority," Kessler said sadly, "were bystanders. If you see something wrong, you must speak up. Don't be a bystander. Sixty-three years after the Holocaust, there is a genocide going on in Darfur. Over 200,000 are dead and 2 million displaced, but the world stands by deaf, dumb and blind."

Andre Kessler speaks regularly to prescheduled groups at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta. For more information, contact Judi Ayal at 404-870-1632.