NASHUA – For a long time, Fred Teeboom wondered why he, unlike so many other children, survived "that hell" that was the Holocaust.

"Why did I survive? Why am I still here?" Teeboom asked, rhetorically, of roughly 100 people gathered before him Sunday afternoon on the grounds of the New Hampshire Holocaust Memorial in Nashua, which Teeboom founded two years ago.

Now, nearly three-quarters of a century after Teeboom, his brother and their mother stayed one step ahead of the Nazi regime by fleeing their native Amsterdam and hiding, with the assistance of a Christian family, in rural Holland, he has a pretty good idea why he was spared: "I believe I survived to build this memorial."

Taking it one step further, Teeboom and an assemblage of guest participants unveiled as part of Sunday’s Yom Hashoah Remembrance service the Holocaust Memorial’s newest addition – a 5-ton granite sculpture based on a photograph of a young girl dressed in white that Teeboom came across last year.

"A light shines for this little girl," Teeboom said, gazing at an enlarged version of the photo displayed for the service. "When I saw that (photo) I knew it was what I’ve been searching for."

The roughly 90-minute program was the latest of several events at the elaborate memorial, which sits on the west side of Main Street just south of Rotary Common park. Rabbi Henry Morse, from Congregation Sha’ar Hashamayim in Stoughton, Mass., led the memorial service, delivered the keynote address and served as master of ceremonies for the speaking program.

Listed as Sunday’s "distinguished guest speaker" was Peter W. H. Koster, a Pelham resident born in The Netherlands – and who survived a harrowing childhood stint in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II.

Mayor Jim Donchess praised Teeboom’s efforts in making the Holocaust Memorial a reality, as well as "a lot of people who did a lot of work" under his guidance. The project, Donchess noted, came to fruition under the administration of his predecessor, former two-term Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, who advocated for its creation. She and her husband, David, were among Sunday’s visitors.

The memorial, and the new sculpture, "show what can happen when one individual has an idea," Donchess said. The child in the sculpture likely "had so much life to live (until) her life was terminated by the Nazis."

The sculptor, Joseph Gray, of Gilford, called the project "an emotional undertaking for me," highlighting in a brief talk some of his experiences over the six or so months in which he created the sculpture.

Koster, meanwhile, was born in Indonesia, and was just 10 years old when he, his four brothers and their mother were rounded up and sent to a Japanese POW camp. It was 1943, about a year and a half after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and drew the U.S. into World War II.

A tall man with a full head of white hair, Koster recalled being loaded into a packed freight train car for the trip to the camp, where he was warehoused with countless other POWs.

"Survival was a daily challenge," Koster said. "We ate anything just to stay alive. The Japanese used us as slave labor."

Not surprisingly, "discipline" was frequent and arbitrary, Koster said: "One time I was kicked by the guards because they said I wasn’t working hard enough," he said, recalling how a fellow prisoner, who happened to be a doctor, clandestinely operated on the badly damaged leg under such primitive conditions that anesthesia consisted of the doctor punching Koster in the head "to knock me out," he told the group.

Another time, Koster said, he was tied to a flagpole "in the hot sun, all day long," for supposedly failing to bow just right to the guards.

As the summer of 1945 wore on, Koster recalled, word came down that the Japanese command had set an important date: He and his fellow POWs were to die on Sept. 15.

"We were scheduled for death," Koster said, speaking slowly, perhaps remembering what it felt like to be given less than two months to live. "But then, the bombs … they dropped the bombs," he said of the nuclear attacks in early August 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"We were saved."

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.