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During Holocaust Remembrance Day, a solemn piece of history was displayed in a courtroom at 360 Adams St. A pinstriped uniform, torn and stained with dirt (and likely blood) sits framed and motionless, as if frozen in time.

It has been nearly 65 years since the blue-and-gray uniform was worn. But for over half a decade, it was worn every day by Hon. David Schmidt’s father, who lived in concentration camps as a teenager during the Holocaust.

“The reason I hold this ceremony every year on Yom Shoah [Holocaust Remembrance Day] is to make it clear what happens when people are prejudiced,” said Schmidt, a Kings County Supreme Court Justice. “It gives us new reasons to do justice and treat everyone equally.”

Though the framed uniform he keeps on the wall of his chambers is a grim reminder of the murder and genocide that happened all too recently, it is also an inspiring relic of survival and triumph.

“To me, the most important thing is to learn from it. Prejudice leads to death and dying. We need to stay away from it. If it’s seen anywhere, the world has to stop it,” Justice Schmidt explained, his voice filled with emotion.

Hon. Schmidt was hearing a housing proceeding in his courtroom Tuesday afternoon when he took a brief recess to discuss the Holocaust.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I think it’s important for people to know,” he said.

Last year, Schmidt spoke at a larger Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony, but this year, he brought out the airtight glass case containing the uniform in the morning before the people of his courtroom.

“He kept it after the war and gave it to me,” Hon. Schmidt said. “I’ve had it here for 15 years.”

Schmidt’s father was 13 years old when the Nazis invaded.

“They rounded up the people in my father’s town,” Hon. Schmidt said. “They put them in the shul [synagogue]. They burned the shul. Everyone who jumped out of the windows was shot. The rest ended up in concentration camps.”

Judge Schmidt’s father, Chaim, was shaved and stripped by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp in Poland. The prison uniform was the only thing his father possessed for the next six years. It was what he was wearing for seven days on a train with no food or water, as he and hundreds of other Jews were transported to a death camp in Germany. When they arrived, his father was the lone survivor in the cattle car.

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