Georges Wellers

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Georges Wellers (born January 24, 1905 in Koslow , † May 3, 1991 in Paris ) was a French physiologist and biochemist . After surviving the Auschwitz concentration camp himself, he was one of the first Jewish historians in France to study the Holocaust . He was scientifically and critically committed, especially against Holocaust denial .

Life

Scientific career

The grandson of a rabbi studied biology at Moscow University . When his father, a former factory owner and holder of Russian and Latvian citizenship , was expelled to Latvia after the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922 , Georges Wellers also had to leave the Soviet Union. From 1925 he lived in Riga , where he - not fluent in Latvian - only found employment as a dock worker. In 1929 he went to France with his wife , where he was employed in the research laboratory of the Pasteur Institute . The letter "s" was added to his name to make it easier for the French to pronounce his maiden name Weller correctly.

In 1932 Wellers changed to the physiological research laboratory of the medical faculty of the University of Paris in the Sorbonne as assistant . He made a name for himself as a specialist in physiology and particularly in biochemistry . In 1939 he joined the Center national de la recherche scientifique . He was a prizewinner of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie nationale de Médecine and research director (honorary) at the Center national de la recherche scientifique. In 1956 he became director of the laboratory at the Sorbonne. From 1968 to 1974 he was an associate member of the dean of the medical faculty. He was a knight of the French Legion of Honor and received the Médaille de la Ville de Paris in 1983 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Center de documentation juive contemporaine .

Holocaust survivor

Wellers had become a French citizen in 1938. He took part in the Second World War in 1939/40 as a member of the French army . After the defeat of France in June 1940, he returned to Paris. There he was arrested on December 12, 1941 and initially taken to the Royallieu concentration camp near Compiègne with around 750 other Jews . Due to her papers, his wife was initially not considered to be Jewish and survived in hiding with their sons from 1943 onwards.

In June 1942 Wellers was transferred to the Drancy assembly camp. In October 1943, he and hundreds of other Jewish prisoners from Drancy were temporarily busy sorting out the household effects of arrested Jews in the Paris office of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg .

On June 30, 1944 Weller was in the concentration camp Auschwitz deported , where he in III Auschwitz Monowitz was imprisoned. He was one of the prisoners who were evacuated from Auschwitz on January 18, 1945. He ended up in Buchenwald concentration camp , where he was liberated by the US Army on April 11, 1945 .

Historian of the Holocaust

After the war Wellers dealt in his medical research with the effects of the concentration camp regime, especially that of Auschwitz, on the human organism. He also devoted himself to the history of the National Socialist persecution of the Jews, especially during the Vichy regime . In 1946 he published a memorial report about his time in the National Socialist camps and became an early employee and member of the executive committee of the Center de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, as well as editor-in-chief of its magazine Le Monde Juif . Along with Léon Poliakov and Joseph Billig, he was one of the first French Jewish historians to study the Holocaust . He was president of the L'Association pour la Fondation Mémoire d'Auschwitz and chaired the historical commission of the Mémorial du Martyr Juif Inconnu . In 1961 he appeared as a witness in the Eichmann trial .

Wellers is considered one of the first to deal scientifically with publications by history revisionists and Holocaust deniers such as Paul Rassinier , Robert Faurisson , Henri Roques and Fred A. Leuchter . He proved the authenticity of the Gerstein report and the Korherr report , got involved in the Faurisson affair (1978/79) and participated in the refutation of the Leuchter Report .

Fonts

  • De Drancy à Auschwitz. Éditions du Center, Paris 1946
  • and Robert Waltz: Recherches sur la dénutrition prolongée dans les camps de déportation. [Sn], [Sl] 1947.
  • and Léon Binet: Sur la synthèse du glutathione “in vivo”. Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, Roma 1955.
  • The Nazi concentration system. Union nationale des Associations de déportés, internés et familles de disparus, Fédération nationale des déportés et internés de la Résistance, Paris 1965.
  • with Berthe Thiriart and Émile Edmond Vallée: Pour la liberté. De la botte nazie au retour à la condition humaine, le national socialisme, le combat anti-nazi, la répression et les persécutions hitlériennes, les massacres, la déportation. impr. Crouan et Roques, Lille 1971.
  • L'étoile jaune à l'heure de Vichy ;. De Drancy à Auschwitz. Fayard, [Paris] 1973.
  • The "solution finale de la question juive" et la mythomanie neo-nazie. , Paris 1977.
  • with Joseph Billing and Serge Klarsfeld: The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi mythomania. Beate Klarsfeld Found, New York 1978.
  • Reply to the Neo-Nazi falsification of historical facts concerning the Holocaust. , New York 1978.
  • The existence of gas chambers, the number of victims and the Korherr report. , New York 1978.
  • The solution finale et sa mythomania neo-nazie. L'existence des chambres à gaz; le nombre des victimes. Klarsfeld, Paris 1979.
  • and Jean Manson: De la résistance à la déportation. The Nazi concentration system. , Nancy 1980
  • Le "traitement special" - " special treatment " - qu'est-ce que c'est? Le camp d'internement de Gurs , 1. In: Le monde juif. La revue du Center de documentation juive contemporaine, 36, No. 100, 1980, pp. 117-147
  • La France et la question juive 1940 - 1944. 1981
  • Les chambres à gaz ont existé. Of the document, the témoignages, the code. Gallimard, Paris 1981
  • with André Kaspi and Serge Klarsfeld: La France et la question juive 1940 - 1944. Actes du colloque du Center de documentation juive contemporaine (10 au 12 mars 1979). S. Messinger, Paris 1981 ISBN 9782865830114
  • Foreword to: Activité des organizations juives en France sous l'occupation. Ed. Center de documentation juive contemporaine. Ed. du Center, Paris 1947. 2nd edition, ibid. 1983 ISBN 2902041012
  • Essai de détermination du nombre de morts au Camp d'Auschwitz. In: Le Monde juif. La revue du Center de documentation juive contemporaine. ISSN  0026-9425 1983, pp. 127-159
  • Le Soulèvement du Ghetto de Varsovie et son Impact en Pologne et en France. Table ronde du 17 avril 1983 in the Salle Médicis du Sénat. Edited by Center de documentation juive contemporaine, Paris 1984
  • De la guerre à l'après-guerre. Publications Langues'O, Paris 1985.
  • A propos d'une thèse de doctorat "explosive" sur le rapport Gerstein. Center de documentation juive contemporaine, Paris 1986.
  • and Serge Klarsfeld: Mémoire du génocide. Un recueil de 80 articles du “Monde juif”, revue du Center de documentation juive contemporaine. Center de documentation juive contemporaine CDJC; L'Association "Les fils et filles des déportés juifs de France", Paris 1987, ISBN 9782902041039 .
  • The “Leuchter Report” on the Auschwitz gas chambers. Revisionist propaganda and denial of the truth. In: Dachauer Hefte . Studies and documents on the history of the National Socialist concentration camps. 7, 1991, pp. 230-241.
  • Un juif sous Vichy. Editions Tirésias, Paris 1991 ISBN 9782908527063

literature

  • Le Monde juif 143 (1991).
  • Pierre Marais: En lisant de près les écrivains chantres de la Shoah. Primo Levi, Georges Wellers, Jean-Claude Pressac. La Vieille Taupe, Paris 1991, ISBN 9782903279172 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florent Brayard: Comment l'idée vint à M. Rassinier. Naissance du révisionnisme . Fayard, Paris 1996, p. 354.
personal data
SURNAME Wellers, Georges
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weller, Georges (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French biochemist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Koslow
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1991
Place of death Paris