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In May 1940, before Charlie Stevens turned 4, he was hidden in a Protestant orphanage outside Brussels, Belgium. Then he spent some years in a convent in Bruges and wound up in a Jewish orphanage outside Brussels. The young boy knew what was happening, but he had no idea why.

"I didn't know I was Jewish for a number of years," recalled Stevens, 60, of Palo Alto. "When I finally went to the Jewish orphanage, I was influenced by the people there. They sang songs and I experienced a spirit of community in that year."

Marie Brandstetter, 64, of Burlingame, who left Poland with her family, minus her father, wandered throughout Russia surviving hunger, cold and misery in Siberia.

Helen Farkas, 76 and also of Burlingame, described riding to Auschwitz in a jammed cattle car for three days. "The hot stinky smell was awful," she said.

The three survivors, who were all young during the Holocaust, told their stories Sunday at a Yom HaShoah workshop for teens at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo.

"The major growth experience is from 10 to 16 years," said Julia Finkelstein, 16, from Hillsborough. "That is when you build your moral standards and how you think.

"To have everything taken away from you — your parents and your Judaism — completely destroys you. It would take tremendous strength to survive."

Finkelstein asked Farkas if she still remembers the smells.

Farkas replied, "Yes, I still remember the smell of burning flesh at Auschwitz."

Discussing how much children should be taught about the Holocaust, Millbrae resident Vikki Katz, 16, said: "I think whether we are Jewish or not, we all should study the Holocaust so that we never forget and it never happens again. No one should deny it. All of my non-Jewish friends are curious and ask me about it. They find it mind-boggling."

Katz recalled that while touring the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., she overheard a fellow tourist say, "I still can't believe it happened."

"It took all the strength I had to keep from screaming at him," Katz said. "We must never let people think the Holocaust didn't happen."

Finkelstein, whose school has a Holocaust literature class, said, "My classmates have gained a respect for Jewish people and have become very tolerant of fellow students, through these readings."

Stevens agreed that reading books as well as "visiting the Holocaust Museum and having guest speakers at classes…are ways of relating the Holocaust story. Education is the key to understanding."

Katz said, "The importance lies in the individual stories recalled in books. We should be very proud of our people's strength to overcome what Hitler did."

A workshop on the Nuremberg Trials was held for adults at the same time, led by Dr. Michael Thaler, former president of the Holocaust Center of Northern California.

Following the workshops was the North Peninsula's annual Yom HaShoah observance, which featured keynote speaker Linda Breder, a Czechoslovakian-born survivor who recalled the horrors of her imprisonment at Auschwitz and urged the audience to listen to survivors' stories while the aging survivors are still alive.

The service concluded with words from six teens who had participated in the March of the Living, which retraces the steps of the infamous death march from Auschwitz to Birkenau. After describing how the experience had affected them, the teens descended from the bimah holding memorial candles, survivors at their sides.

The Sunday programs were sponsored by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation, Jewish Community Relations Council, Peninsula Temple Sholom, Peninsula Temple Beth El, Peninsula Sinai Congregation, Peninsula Jewish Community Center and North Peninsula Jewish Community Day School.