Mendel Szajnfeld

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Mendel Szajnfeld , also Schainfeld , (born August 2, 1922 in Sosnowiec , Poland ; † May 21, 2000 in Oslo , Norway ) was a Polish-Norwegian Holocaust survivor. As a contemporary witness of the Holocaust, he kept the memory of it alive through stories in schools and in Polish concentration camp memorials.

Life

Mendel Szajnfeld was the son of a mill worker and the youngest of seven siblings; he grew up in Łysowiec, east of Kraków . At the age of 15 he began an apprenticeship as a shoemaker, but later switched to the job of a metal worker. After the German occupation of Poland in September 1939, he and his family were sent to a ghetto. There he learned the German language from his father. On April 10, 1941, Mendel Szajnfeld was expelled from the ghetto with other young and unmarried men and deported by train to the Rakowicki labor camp near Kraków. In July 1943 he was deported to the labor camp and later to the Płaszów concentration camp . After his escape on January 23, 1945, which was made possible by the approach of the Red Army , he found no more relatives in his hometown. He left Poland and had to spend another two years in a Bavarian refugee camp near Bamberg.

Szajnfeld emigrated to Norway in May 1947 and then lived in Oslo. He became a metal worker at the Thune company and married the Norwegian Olfried. In 1957 he received Norwegian citizenship. Increasingly, he suffered from health restrictions and late damage as a result of his imprisonment in a concentration camp, and he became sick more and more frequently. In 1971 he traveled again to the Federal Republic of Germany to apply to the Munich Compensation Office for an increase in his pension. The German documentary filmmaker Hans-Dieter Grabe accompanied him on the train ride and made a film portrait of him. Since the doctors had not given him good prognoses because of his poor health in the early 1970s, Grabe was surprised by the news that Szajnfeld was still alive after more than 25 years. Thereupon, in the summer of 1998, Grabe created another documentary in three weeks: Mendel is alive - re-encounter with Mendel Szajnfeld . It shows, among other things, how Szajnfeld, as a witness of the Holocaust, accompanied Norwegian tour groups to the concentration camp memorials in Poland.

publication

  • Mendel Szajnfeld: Fortell hva som skjedde med oss. Invader from the Holocaust. ("Tell what happened to us. Memories of the Holocaust.") Gyldendal, Oslo 1993, ISBN 82-05-21904-4 , 289 p .; Mendel Szajnfeld's minnefond, 2003, ISBN 82-303-0005-4 .
  • Mendel Szajnfeld: Tell us what happened to us! Memories of the Holocaust. Translated from Norwegian and with an afterword by Elisabeth Turvold. Edited by Sascha Feuchert, Markus Roth and Kristine Tromsdorf. Berlin: Metropol 2016. ISBN 3863312759

Movies

  • Mendel Schainfeld's second trip to Germany. Documentary, Federal Republic of Germany, 1972, 43 min., Script and director: Hans-Dieter Grabe, production: ZDF
  • Mendel is alive - reunification with Mendel Szajnfeld. Documentary film, BR Germany, 1999, 99 min., Script and director: Hans-Dieter Grabe, production: ZDF
    The film was awarded the ARTE documentary film prize in 1999.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Report what happened to us! December 6, 2009
  2. ^ Winner of the 23rd Duisburg Film Week , 1999
personal data
SURNAME Szajnfeld, Mendel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schainfeld, Mendel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish Holocaust survivor, metal worker
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Sosnowiec
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 2000
Place of death Oslo , Norway