Growing up, Fred Wysoki knew both his parents were Holocaust survivors, but didn’t know much about their experience beyond that.

“Subconsciously, I knew that [talking about it] was painful, and I honored that by not upsetting either one of them with prying questions,” he said.

In fact, it wasn’t until his father had passed that Wysoki got any answers. Late in his life, Jack Wysoki had recorded his testimony for USC Shoah Foundation, but had asked his son not to watch the video until after he was gone. Wysoki eventually watched the testimony with his step-mother. Neither of them had ever heard the stories Jack told.

“That was part of his success and his philosophy,” Wysoki said. “He didn’t want to dwell on the negative.”

Because his parents were divorced, and he was raised in Minnesota while his dad resided in Texas, Wysoki never spent much time with his father. Now, however, Wysoki has rediscovered his father as he created a documentary, Stories My Father Never Told Me, about Jack Wysoki’s life.

“My dad would have wanted the largest group possible to see and hear his story — he just didn't want to be around when it was heard,” Wysoki said.

Jack Wysoki was born in Poland. He was captured by the Nazis at 14, and his father was quickly killed. By the end of the war, he was the lone survivor of his immediate family. During his time as a captive, Jack Wysoki circled through 22 concentration camps, surviving because of his ability to think quickly and learn new languages.

“[He] had the foresight to do what needed to be done to move forward and survive,” Wysoki said. “He only had an 8^th or 9^th grade education, but he always managed to impress the smartest person in the room.”

“My dad had the foresight to do what needed to be done to move forward and survive."

After the war, Jack Wysoki used this same intellect to get his young family over to America and to eventually grow to be a successful hotel owner. Sometimes, however, this led to clashes with his children.

“He was always driving himself to be better today than he was yesterday and expected us to do the same,” Wysoki said. “Since I lived 1,200 miles away from him, I didn’t have to see the hard side of the man as much as the others.”

Watching his father’s video testimony has led to a lot of new realizations like this for Wysoki, which inspired him to create the film.

“I wasn’t looking to make a documentary, but I was so haunted by the stories my father told that I had to try and do something with it,” he said.

So far, Wysoki has screened the video at a few local theaters and received feedback from the first audiences. He’s currently working on finding funding so that he can bring the movie to a wider audience.

“I would love to tell my story as the child of two Holocaust survivors and travel the globe with my documentary to fulfill my desire to educate people about the Holocaust and keep these precious stories alive,” he said. “It’s what my dad would have wanted.”