An extraordinary moment of historical significance and personal gratitude unfolded Monday evening in Washington when Gene Simmons, the 75-year-old frontman of legendary rock band KISS, encountered Harold "Hal" Urban, a 100-year-old World War II veteran who participated in liberating the concentration camp where Simmons' mother was imprisoned as a teenager.
Their meeting during the American Memorial Day parade marked the first time the two men had met, despite their lives being forever connected by the events of May 1945. Urban, still wearing his original military jacket from the liberation, represented one of the American heroes who helped end the Holocaust's systematic murder of European Jewry.
When Simmons approached Urban during the parade, the rock star's usual theatrical persona gave way to raw emotion. Without his characteristic Kiss makeup, Simmons clasped Urban's hand and delivered words that encapsulated decades of unspoken gratitude, "If there weren't brave people like you – I wouldn't be here, and neither would my mother. I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
Urban's memories of liberating Mauthausen remain vivid and traumatic even at age 100. He described the overwhelming stench of burning human remains, emaciated prisoners stumbling in confusion and terror, and the psychological trauma that proved more devastating than conventional combat. His unit buried approximately 500 corpses within 24 hours of the camp's liberation – a grim testament to the Nazi regime's systematic extermination efforts.
While Urban cannot definitively recall meeting Flora Klein, Simmons' mother, during those chaotic liberation days, both were present at Mauthausen when American forces arrived. Klein was just 14 years old, one of thousands of Jewish prisoners whose survival depended entirely on the Allied advance reaching them before the Nazi machinery of death could complete its work.
Proud 100 year old WWII (!!!) veteran, Sgt Urban, was actually one of our troops who liberated my, then 14 yr old Mother from Mathousen Concentration Camp in Nazi Germany. God Bless Our Vets! pic.twitter.com/YVaU7o5CR7
— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) May 26, 2025
Following the war, Urban returned to civilian life, establishing himself as a farmer in Illinois and raising nine children. However, the psychological wounds from his wartime service, particularly his experiences at the concentration camps, never fully healed. "The psychologist said that when you raise a family, the nightmares subside. And when your children leave home, they return. And that's what happened," Urban reflected.
Simmons, born in Israel to Klein after her immigration following the war, grew up understanding his mother's Holocaust survival in only the broadest terms. Klein, like many survivors, rarely discussed her experiences in detail. Only in recent years has Simmons learned the complete scope of how narrowly his existence depended on historical circumstances beyond anyone's control.
"She was in the camp at age 14," Simmons explained. "She hardly talked about it at all. Now I know how close I came to losing everything."
