Auschwitz survivor takes to Facebook and Twitter in effort to find lost twin

Menachem Bodner’s birth name was Elias Gottesmann. He was held in Auschwitz during World War II, where he and his twin brother were victims of Dr. Josef Mengele, known for his obsession and gruesome experimentation with twins.

When the 4-year-old Bodner was liberated from the camp, he was separated from his brother. Now, 68 years later, Bodner has enlisted the help of a professional genealogist, Ayana KimRon, to track down Jeno Gottesmann. Red Cross records indicate that a boy with Jeno’s “A-7734” tattoo was treated at a hospital near Bodner’s camp just two weeks after the liberation. But, eventually, the trail goes cold.

So, KimRon turned to the Internet for help.

March 11, 2013, 7:52pm / 185

yaleself:

Gisella Perl: Angel and Abortionist in the Auschwitz Death Camp

“Gisella Perl was Romanian and Jewish. She was a gynaecologist at a time and place where very few women went into the medical professions. In 1944, she and her entire family were shipped off to Auschwitz, where Perl was instructed to provide medical care for her fellow inmates — medical care that was supposed to happen without even the most basic medical supplies.

In this position, she was officially employed by Josef Mengele, and she saw what happened to women who entered Auschwitz while pregnant. The short answer was death. The long answer was that those deaths were often horrifying and drawn-out. So Gisella Perl gave herself a new job — protecting women by helping them hide evidence of pregnancy and by performing abortions with her bare hands.

I’d never heard Perl’s story before. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s riveting. The Holocaust History Project has a long and well-cited version.” - Maggie Koerth-Baker, via BoingBoing

(via major-hellstrom)

January 20, 2013, 7:41pm / 164

The woman’s barrack at Auschwitz as it was seen immediately upon liberation by the Soviets, 27 Jan 1945

January 02, 2013, 1:00pm / 82

Documents indicate 87-yr-old Philadelphia man as an SS guard in Auschwitz II

The case of an 87-year-old Philadelphia man accused by Germany of serving as an SS guard at Auschwitz has largely centered on whether he was stationed at the part of the death camp used as a killing machine for Jews.

Johann “Hans” Breyer — while admitting he was an Auschwitz guard — insists he was never there.

World-War II-era documents obtained by The Associated Press indicate otherwise.

The files provided by the U.S. Department of Justice in response to an AP request are now in the hands of German authorities, and could provide the legal basis for charging him as an accessory to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Nazi death camp.

The retired toolmaker told the AP in September, when German authorities confirmed he was under investigation, that he was always at Auschwitz I, a smaller camp used largely for slave labor, and never entered Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, where about 90 percent of the 1.1 million to 1.5 million Jews and others killed in the camp were murdered.

December 28, 2012, 10:16pm / 24

An Auschwitz survivor photographed during Soviet liberation

December 04, 2012, 4:00pm / 1113