Szymon Kluger

Szymon Kluger (born January 19, 1925 in Oświęcim , Poland ; died May 26, 2000 there ) was the last surviving Jew in the city of Oświęcim (Auschwitz) - a place whose population had been predominantly Jewish before the Second World War . In 1961 he was the only Auschwitz Jew to return to his family's homeland. In 2014, the house where he was born was opened as a museum with an attached café.

Life

Pre-war and Holocaust

Szymon Kluger (also Szymon Klieger or Szymon Klüger) was born as the son of Symcha Kluger and Fryda Weiss in Oświęcim. He attended elementary school, which he finished in the spring of 1939.

During the war he had to work with the other Jews from Oświęcim on the site of the future Auschwitz camp . Then he was taken to the Bendsburg (Będzin) assembly camp and in 1942 (or 1943) to the Blechhammer camp (in Blachownia; the camp was administratively affiliated as a subsidiary camp to KL Auschwitz III in April 1944). His parents also became prisoners in KL Auschwitz. There they were murdered. Szymon Kluger got the prisoner number 179539. From Blechhammer he was deported to the Groß Rosen concentration camp , then to the Buchenwald concentration camp . He was forced to work there for armaments in aircraft construction.

Liberation and Emigration

In April 1945 he was liberated by the Americans near Halberstadt . With the help of the Swedish Red Cross and UNRRA , he came to Sweden for treatment in July . He was in the hospital in Malmö and Kalmar until 1946 and wanted to stay in Sweden. He no longer had a family in Poland. His brother was in Sweden, his sister in Frankfurt am Main . At first he lived on welfare because he had no job. Then he attended a technical school in Uppsala and learned the trade of mechanic and electrician . In the meantime he got to know a woman from Romania . The two got engaged, but then separated. Szymon Kluger fell ill and had to be treated again. He was taken to the hospital. After the treatment he worked at Sveriges Radio AB as a pieceworker. He continued his education via distance learning and wanted to learn a technical profession. In the meantime he got a Swedish alien passport .

Return to Oświęcim

In 1961, Kluger moved back to Poland. He began to work in the chemical plant in Oświęcim and initially lived in the city in a workers' hotel on Wyspiański Street. In 1962 he moved to his parents' house, near the Lomdei Misznajot synagogue , which he lived in alone. When he was old and sick, he often showed the tattoo on his arm and was referred to as “the last Jew of Oświęcim”. Szymon Kluger died in May 2000. His death marked the end of the city's Jewish history, which traces back to the 16th century. During this time the first Jews settled there as salt traders . In the 1920s there were 20 synagogues in the city. A single synagogue has been preserved, it is part of the Auschwitz Jewish Center .

Memory of Szymon Kluger

Former home of Szymon Kluger, 2011

The Ohel over the grave of Szymon Kluger in the Jewish cemetery in Oswiecim

The former home of Szymon Kluger is located directly behind the Chewra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue . When he died shortly before the Auschwitz Jewish Center opened in 2000, his brother and sister, Moishe Kluger and Bronia Kluger Rosenblatt, donated the house to their family to the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation , which also runs the Jewish Center in Oświęcim / Auschwitz .

The Auschwitz Jewish Center initiated the project to restore the Kluger family's dilapidated house and convert it into a living historical museum. In addition to a permanent exhibition, various exhibitions and guided tours provide answers to countless questions about daily life. Café Bergson was also opened there in May 2014. The project is financed through crowdfunding .

Szymon, Moishe and Bronia lived with their six siblings, parents and two grandparents in the small three-story building behind the Chewra-Lomdei-Mishnayot synagogue . The house belonged to Bernard Teichmann, the maternal grandfather who owned a shop in Germany . Until the November pogroms in 1938, Bernard Teichmann commuted regularly to Germany. Szymon Kluger's father taught the Talmud to his children at home . The above three siblings were the only family members who survived the Holocaust.

literature

• Lucyna Filip: Jews in Oswiecim . Scientia Publishing House, Oświęcim, 2005, ISBN 8391118819 , pp. 340–341.

Web links

Commons : Szymon Kluger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Auschwitz Jewish Center
• Kluger Family House (English)
• Article in The Telegraph.
• at NBC News.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Burden of the Past . Stern, January 25, 2005, accessed October 23, 2014.
2. ↑ Jozef Paczynski: Encounter in friendship, because we cannot bring the dead to life . Wetterau district, July 14, 2010, accessed on October 23, 2014.
3. ^ Hinda Mandell: Bargain Shopping in the Shadow of Auschwitz: Letter from Oswiecim . In: Jewish Daily Forward , August 19, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2014. 
4. ↑ Kluger House ( memento from July 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Jewish Center in Oświęcim / Auschwitz, as of July 2009.
5. ↑ Renovation of Szymon Kluger's house in Oświęcim ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on sztetl.org.pl, accessed October 22, 2014. 
6. ^ House of the last Jew in Auschwitz is to become a café , derstandard.at, April 9, 2013, accessed on October 22, 2014
7. ↑ Night of the museums in a Jewish way ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , sztetl.org.pl, May 16, 2014, accessed October 22, 2014.