Holocaust Survivor, 86, Knocked Unconscious Playing Peacemaker Over Parking Spot

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- It's often an annoyance, but double parking in Brooklyn got downright dangerous recently after a local store owner and Holocaust survivor said he tried to reason with an angry driver.

As CBS 2's Hazel Sanchez found out, his parking space peacekeeping efforts got him sent to the hospital.

Furniture store owner, Michael Malin may be 86 years old, but that didn't stop him from trying to break up a fight between an employee and a man less than half his age.

"I have a pacemaker in me and I can definitely not fight. I can't afford to be hit," he told Sanchez.

Malin said his employee was arguing with a 41-year-old man who had double parked outside his Brooklyn furniture store on McDonald Avenue. Malin said he tried to stop the fight, when the driver shoved him.

"All I wanted to go over is 'Cut it out guys' and the next thing I knew I was on the ground bleeding from my head," Malin said.

Malin was knocked unconscious when his head struck the pavement. He needed four staples in his head to close the wound, but Malin said he has survived much worse.

"I lost my mother, father, my one brother, and twin sisters," he said.

Malin was 13 when he escaped the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"You'd be surprised how much you can survive," he said.

So decades later, taking on a man much stronger than he is in some sense no challenge at all.

The suspect was arrested at the scene and charged with felony assault, menacing and misdemeanor harassment.

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