Rajmund Pajer

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Rajmund Pajer (2012)

Rajmund Pajer (* 1930 in Trieste , Italy ; † July 12, 2016 in Montreal , Canada ) was a Canadian aircraft mechanic of Slovenian descent and was originally an Italian citizen. During the Nazi era , he was imprisoned as a youth in the Austrian Mauthausen concentration camp and in two of its subcamps . As a contemporary witness and in his memories of the war and concentration camp prisoners published in 2010, he campaigned for education about the crimes and atrocities of the Nazi era in Austria .

Childhood and youth

Rajmund Pajer grew up in Trieste . His mother tongue was Slovene and he also learned Italian at school . Due to the lack of food during the Second World War , he and his friend Gustavo went to see his uncle in Istria in 1944 , in the hope of being able to organize food for himself and his family. In the Slovenian hinterland of Trieste, Pajer, who was only 14 years old at the time, and his friend were arrested by Slovenian partisans and forcibly recruited for the resistance against National Socialism .

Life in captivity

The Mauthausen concentration camp , one day after the liberation on May 5, 1945

As a partisan, Pajer was arrested on April 20, 1944 as a result of a strategic failure in an attack on the German-occupied city of Ribnica and transferred to the central prison in Ljubljana . From there, after a stopover in the Begunje prison, he was brought in a cattle wagon by train to the concentration camp in Mauthausen in Upper Austria . He had to see how people were mutilated, murdered in the most horrific ways and the corpses burned in the crematorium .

In October 1944, Pajer and other prisoners were transferred to the Klagenfurt-Lendorf subcamp in Carinthia . The Allies then bombed the nearby city of Klagenfurt with phosphorus bombs and the concentration camp prisoners were used to fight fires. After further transfer to the St. Aegyd am Neuwalde concentration camp in Lower Austria , where he was imprisoned from February 1945 to April 1945, he was returned to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There Pajer was liberated by the Allies on May 5, 1945.

Post-war period and current work

Pajer was treated for a long time in a US field hospital and was then taken to a collection camp in Gusen , from where he was returned to Trieste. In his hometown he found his mother and younger brother, who thought he was dead. His father did not survive the Nazi era; he had been deported to the Dachau concentration camp in October 1944 and murdered there by the National Socialists . After the war Pajer worked for a long time in a factory in Serbia . Then he emigrated to Canada , where he found work in the military as an aircraft mechanic.

In 2007 Pajer began to write down his memories of the war experiences and concentration camp imprisonment in English under the title Letter to my Friend . His eyewitness report, which uses the literary means of a “letter to a fictional friend”, was translated into German from 2009 to 2010 by Christian Rabl from the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna , edited and commented on, as well as a biography of Rajmund Pajer and a summary von Rabl's 2008 study on the St. Aegyd am Neuwalde subcamp was added. As a further appendix, Peter Gstettner , retired professor of the Faculty of Education and Educational Research at the University of Klagenfurt , added an inventory that deals with the history of the temporary satellite camp and the former and current barracks in Lendorf near Klagenfurt, the actions of the perpetrators and the long Time dealt with suppressed reappraisal of the crimes of that time. Pajer's bilingual letter, supplemented by the appendices and comments by Rabl and Gstettner and illustrated with drawings by Vito M., was then published by the two scientists as a book under the title Ich war I 69186 in Mauthausen and published in 2010 by Kitab-Verlag in Klagenfurt .

2007 and 2012 took Pajer as the last survivor of the concentration camp subcamp Klagenfurt-Lendorf at commemorative events in the former concentration camp and today's Khevenhüller barracks in Lendorf Klagenfurt part. In 2010 he was a guest at a memorial service in Ried in der Riedmark , with the memorial at the local memorial near the Ried Church, commemorating the Soviet prisoners who were killed after a major escape from Mauthausen concentration camp in February 1945 during the so-called " Mühlviertel hare hunt " by National Socialist associations as well as soldiers and civilians had been murdered. In addition, since the publication of his book, he has read from his biography several times in Austria and had conversations as a contemporary witness, such as in May 2012 at the Handelsakademie Klagenfurt (HAK), at the Robert Musil Institute for literary research at the University of Klagenfurt and at the Kulturstadel in St. Aegyd am Neuwalde . Also in May 2012 he was a guest at the ceremony to mark the handover after the general renovation of the Israelite cemetery in Klagenfurt.

Rajmund Pajer died in July 2016 at the age of 86 in his adopted home in Montreal, Canada.

Quotes

“Not many people know about the small details of daily living and dying in this camp and how people behave and act in such conditions. There aren't many of us left to talk about it. "

- Rajmund Pajer : about the Mauthausen concentration camp .

literature

Publications

Web links

Commons : Rajmund Pajer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Uschi Loigge: "The concentration camp with the best chances of survival" . In: Kleine Zeitung of May 4, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  2. ↑ Mag. Christian Rabl. ( PDF file, 53 KB) Publications and editorships. Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna , p. 2 , accessed on September 6, 2012 .
  3. ^ Andrea M. Lauritsch: Rajmund Pajer. I was in Mauthausen in 69186. Review in: Mnemosyne No. 32/2010, ISSN  0026-7074 , pp. 194–195 ( online in the Google Book Search ).
  4. ↑ Darabos unveils a memorial plaque in the Klagenfurt Khevenhüller barracks . On: Website of the Austrian Armed Forces on September 17, 2007. Retrieved on September 6, 2012.
  5. ↑ Sandra Glanzer: A contemporary witness in Lendorf . On: Online portal Mein District.at from May 11, 2010. Retrieved on September 6, 2012.
  6. ^ Commemoration of the Klagenfurt Lendorf subcamp (May 4, 2012) . On: Remember.at. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  7. ↑ Ludwig Einicke: With 14 years in the concentration camp . In: antifa. Magazine for anti-fascist politics and culture , issue 11–12 / 2010, ISSN  0232-6418 , p. 28. Accessed on September 6, 2012.
  8. ^ Conversation with contemporary witnesses with Rajmund Pajer . Event announcement for May 4, 2012 in the Handelsakademie Klagenfurt am Wörthersee (HAK), on the website of the center polis - Political learning in school . Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  9. ^ A b Rajmund Pajer: I was in Mauthausen in 69186 . Event announcement for May 5th, 2010 on the website of the University of Klagenfurt . Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  10. ↑ Commemoration in the St. Aegyd satellite camp . Report on the memorial event on May 10, 2012 in the Kulturstadel of the municipality of St. Aegyd am Neuwalde , on: derBernauer.at. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  11. ↑ Israelitischer Friedhof restored (May 8, 2012) ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . On: Website of the city of Klagenfurt am Wörthersee . Retrieved September 6, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.klagenfurt.at
personal data
SURNAME Pajer, Rajmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian author and concentration camp survivor
DATE OF BIRTH 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Trieste , Italy
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 2016
Place of death Montreal , Canada