Stanislaw Hantz
Stanisław Hantz (* 22. January 1923 in Vladivostok ; † 17th July 2008 ) was a Polish survivor of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz I , Auschwitz-Birkenau , Gross-Rosen , satellite camp Hersbruck of Flossenburg and Dachau . He worked for years as a contemporary witness , especially in the "Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz", which is named after him and based in Kassel .
Life
Hantz was arrested by Germans in Warsaw on August 12, 1940 at the age of 17, along with other young men . Only three days later they were all deported to the main camp of Auschwitz , which had only opened a few months earlier . In his subsequent imprisonment, which lasted 52 months, he was mostly a member of the carpentry command, whose main task was to expand the individual sections of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
When the Red Army advanced towards Auschwitz towards the end of November 1944 due to the war, Hantz and his command were relocated to the west: first to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp and then to the Hersbruck concentration camp. On one of the countless death marches , he finally got to the Dachau concentration camp on April 24, 1945, where he was liberated by US soldiers five days later .
He then returned to Warsaw, where he did not find any of his family members, as they were long dead. So he decided to return to Auschwitz to help build the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum . He also attended the local high school and also made up his Abitur . A few years later he finally left Auschwitz and worked in various mining companies until his retirement in 1982 .
Hantz subsequently founded the Zgorzelec Association of Former Concentration Camp inmates. In the 1970s he returned to the Federal Republic of Germany for the first time upon invitation ; further visits followed. Finally, he led numerous groups on educational trips to the former sites of the Nazi death machine.
In 1998 appeared under the title lemons from Canada , the biography Stanisław Hantz '.
literature
- Karin Graf: Lemons from Canada . Life with Auschwitz by Stanisław Hantz . 2nd edition. Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz, Kassel 2008 ISBN 3-00-002699-1
Web links
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hantz, Stanislaw |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish survivor of the concentration camps Auschwitz I, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Groß-Rosen, Hersbruck and Dachau |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 22, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vladivostok |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 17, 2008 |