The Boston Globe - February 1,2004

Benjamin Jacobs had completed only one year of dental school when Poland fell to Germany in World War II. He was taken to a series of concentration camps, ending with Auschwitz. As his mother told him to do, he brought along his dental supplies.

Mr. Jacobs, who treated other prisoners and even guards during his four years in the camps, died Friday, January 30 of kidney failure. He was 84."In the first camp, somebody had a terrible toothache and they didn't have a dentist," said his wife, Else of Brookline. "And that's when my husband volunteered, and ever since then he became known as the dentist no matter which camp he was transferred to."

After the war, in which he lost his parents and his sister, Mr. Jacobs traveled for about a year until he settled in Luedenscheid, a small town in Germany, and opened a dental supply store.

While attending a Rosh Hashanah service in a neighboring town in 1948, he met the daughter of the man officiating the service. She would become his wife. However, Mr. Jacobs already had his immigration papers and left for Brookline the following year. A year later, he returned to marry and the two settled in Brookline for good in 1950.

In 1951, he opened Shawmut TV and Appliance Center on the corner of Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street. He operated the business until 1968, when he "lost interest," his wife said, and began to dabble in various other careers.

He became a stockbroker, but quickly changed his path again. He obtained a real estate license, though he never practiced, and tried out the advertising business for a short time.

Around the same time, he began speaking at high schools in the Boston area about his experiences during the Holocaust. He was then approached by a speaker's bureau and took his talks to universities.

As part of a project at Yale University, he had his story recorded. He also participated in the Shoah Project, an effort headed by filmmaker Steven Spielberg in the 1990s to preserve every living survivor's story before there were none left.

In 1994, he published his first book, "The Dentist of Auschwitz," and his second, "100 Year Secret," is soon to be published.

Unlike many Holocaust survivors, his wife said he did not feel guilty that he lived. Instead, she said he was happy he had the opportunity to help so many people.

"He just said he was very lucky, he was grateful to his mother that she made him take his instruments," Else said.

A member of the World Jewish Congress, Mr. Jacobs was born in Dobra, Poland, on Nov. 18, 1919.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Jacobs leaves a nephew, Victor, of Long Island, N.Y.

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