PASSAIC -- By the time Chanoch Eyal was about 6 years old, he had survived more hardships than many people face in a lifetime.

It was February 1943 and Eyal was among about 1,200 Polish-Jewish children who had completed an arduous escape from the Nazis to what is now Israel. Traveling for more than three years, from Warsaw, to Siberia, Tehran, Karachi and finally Palestine, Eyal survived despite losing both parents, and contending with near-constant bouts of fear and perpetual hunger.

On Sunday, the 70-year-old Passaic resident described his experiences as one of the "Tehran Children" to a small but attentive audience at the Passaic Public Library on Gregory Avenue. Eyal's talk followed Holocaust Remembrance Day, observed on Friday. He said he shares his story in order to prevent atrocities in the future similar to those from which he fled.

"I think the memory of the Holocaust itself, the 6 million, is starting to fade," he said by telephone several days before his presentation. He was referring to the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II. "I think it's very important for children or youth, so they can be aware so it doesn't happen again."

Eyal, an older sister and several cousins were among those who made it to Israel. His father, a bookbinder, died in Siberia, where he labored cutting down trees in the severe cold. His mother disappeared and later died in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The group of thousands of refugees had walked there, covering about 2,000 miles in two to three months, Eyal said, after the Russian government allowed them to leave Siberia. He said his sister told him they subsisted mostly on raspberries and mushrooms. Many wrapped their feet in straw and rags for want of shoes.

"I don't have to tell you how tough it was," he said, about the year he spent in Siberia. "Anyone who survived was just plain lucky."

Eyal's journey began in 1939 when his family and his uncle's family fled Nazi persecution of Jews in Warsaw, where he was born. The went to a small village on the border with Russia, but Russian authorities sent them and hundreds of thousands of other Poles who turned down Russian citizenship to labor camps in Siberia.

After about one year, Eyal and his family walked to Tashkent. From there, Eyal and the other children traveled alone on a train south to the Caspian Sea, where they boarded a ship to Persia (now Iran), settling in a refugee camp in Tehran for about eight months. Finally, Eyal said, the British, who then controlled Palestine, decided to allow the children and several hundred adults into the country.

Because Iraq would not let the Jews cross their country by land, the children journeyed by boat across the Arabian Gulf to Karachi, which was then part of India and is now in Pakistan, and then on another boat around Saudi Arabia to Suez, Egypt. Ultimately, they boarded a train to Palestine, which in 1948 became the independent country of Israel.

Eyal, whose given name was Henic Oxenhorn, was called Chanoch by his Israeli teachers. He chose the last name Eyal, which means "strength" in Hebrew, when he was 18. He guesses that his birthday was Sept. 13, 1937, though he cannot be sure because he has no birth certificate. He has lived much of his life in Israel and Passaic working as a teacher and psychologist. Ruth Eyal said her former husband tells his story in part because of his fascination with history and in part to deal with the trauma of his early life. It is also for the many who did not survive.

"It's a commitment to not have all of these people who suffered like this swept under the rugs," she said.

Karen Berman, a friend of the Eyals, said that to hear history through someone who lived it is special. She said she would take home a simple but important message: "Treasure what you have, because so many people take life for granted."