CALISTOGA – Nick Hope, a Holocaust survivor from Northern California, turned 100 on Sunday.
Hope, along with friends and family, hosted a birthday party in his hometown of Calistoga to celebrate turning 100.
“I don’t feel like I’m 100,” Hope said Sunday.
CBS13 first shared Hope’s full story in a three-part series that aired in May 2024, titled “What Hope Can Do.”
While his birthday was filled with smiles, there were many days in Hope’s life that were darker. Some days he didn’t even know if he would make it to the next morning, let alone decades more.
“How did I get through this horrible hell and live for 100 years?” Hope said.
Hope was just a child and survived the Holodomor, a famine that hit the Ukrainian population and claimed millions of lives.
As a teenager, Hope was imprisoned for over two years in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
“No more man. No name. Zero. You walk in there, you’re a dead man,” Hope said.
Through every trial, Hope kept his grandfather’s words in his heart: “He always said, ‘Be patient. Be patient,'” Hope said.
He survived the Holocaust after American troops liberated Dachau. After that, he was truly alive.
“For him to do what he did, it’s something he can’t do. It’s very hard,” said Nick Hope’s son, George. “And for him, he doesn’t hold back. That’s the beauty of it, he wants to keep moving forward. I think his famous quote for him to live to be 100 is, ‘Just keep going.'”
George is one of Hope’s three children.
After the end of World War II, Hope found a new life in marriage with his wife Nadia, also a Holocaust survivor.
After the war they lived in Germany for a time and eventually settled in Calistoga.
Hope worked until she was 97 and retired as a renowned Napa Valley builder.
If there is one thing that characterizes his life more than hope, it is faith and forgiveness.
“It helps me live my whole life, until I’m 100 years old. God says, ‘Forgive and be forgiven,’” Hope said.
The family is raising money through an online fundraiser with the goal of sending Hope back to Dachau for the 80th anniversary of the camp’s liberation in April 2025.
