But Samet is surprised that something like this hadn't happened sooner.
"I didn't lose the faith in humanity," he said. "I know not to depend on humanity."
Samet was just 6 in the spring of 1944 when the Nazis came to his house around the noontime meals and told them to pack. They were given 15 minutes to be outside "with our valuables and one change of underwear."
Sitting in his sunny apartment in a jade-green building a few blocks from the synagogue, the retired jeweller recalled the long march to the trains.
"What bothered me most is that there were Hungarians walking both sides, to and fro on the sidewalks," he said, curling his mouth into a grimace and shaking his head. "Nobody paid attention. Nobody cared. They were as bad as the Nazis."
At one point, he watched in horror as a Gestapo sergeant put a pistol to his mother's head — for daring to ask for better treatment for the weary travellers. She was spared only because she spoke fluent German, and the commander wanted to use her as an interpreter.
They were supposed to be going to Auschwitz, but partisans had destroyed the rail lines. After several months of wandering, they arrived at Bergen-Belsen, the northern German camp where Anne Frank died.
"First thing we saw at the gate, there were about almost two stories of corpses, lying on top of each other," he said. "They'd clear them away. Next day, again, they have the same."
Weakened by starvation, the population was ravaged by disease.
"People were actually lying down and dying," he said, "because they lost hope."
Samet did not lie down.
His father died of typhus two days after being liberated. But by some miracle, the rest of his family survived.
After the war, Samet went to Israel, where he served as a paratrooper. He later relocated to Pittsburgh.
He has been a member of the Tree of Life synagogue for 54 years.
Samet tries to go to "shul" — a synagogue — every day, and prides himself on his punctuality. But on Sunday, he was running late.
"My housekeeper kept me for four minutes," he said.
He began pulling into the lot when somebody knocked on his window. In a gentle, hushed voice, the man said: "You can't go in the synagogue. There's a shooting going on."
Samet tried to back out, but there were too many other cars trying to do the same. Suddenly, out the passenger window, he saw what he later realised was a detective.
"He was shooting at the fellow," he said. "And the fellow was shooting back with a rapid fire. Da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da."
Samet would later be able to identify Robert Bowers to the FBI, so close was he to the action.
- AP
