Happy Valentine Post

When he was 12, Herman Rosenblat and his family from Poland were sent to a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Herman was forced to work shovelling bodies into a crematorium. All the while he did not know if he too, would soon be killed. One day Herman happened to notice a girl on the other side of the barbed wire fence. He then asked her "Can you give me something to eat?" And she took an apple out of her jacket and gave it to him.

Soon this became a routine and the girl gave Herman an apple everyday for seven months. Thir fondness for each other grew. Then one day he told her not to come back - he was being moved to another camp. "A tear came down her eyes," Herman says. "And as I turned around and went back, I started to cry too. I started to cry knowing that I might not see her ever again." Herman was shipped to Czechoslovakia and two hours before he was scheduled to die in the gas chambers, Russian troops liberated the camp and Herman was set free.

Fast forward to almost 15 years later, Herman was living and working in New York city. A friend set him up on a blind date with a woman named Roma Radzika. Herman says he was immediately drawn to her. When they began talking about their lives, Roma asked Herman where he was during World War II. "In a concentration camp," he said. Surprised, she enquired more and then unbelievingly both of then realized who the other was! "Well, what can I tell you? I proposed right there and then, Herman says. "I said, Look, I'll never let you go anymore... Now that we are free, we're going to be together forever."

Herman and Roma have now been married for almost 50 years. He says he's learned a valuable lesson from love. "Every morning when I get up, I say 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'" Herman says. When they appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show recently, Herman decided to honour his wife again - this time by getting down on bended knee. "Sweetheart, it was 64 years ago when I first saw you," he said to Roma. "My mother came to me and said to me, 'I am send you an angel.' And a couple of days later, you appeared at the other side of the fence in the concentration camp. Then in 1957, 14 years later, I had a blind date, and it was you. Now our 50th anniversary is coming up. With this ring, my dear, I pronounce my love for you forever. And as this ring has got no end, my love for you doesn't have an end.

"You have become the beautiful metaphor for what love can be," Oprah said at the end.