Jiri & Zdenek Steiner (MM / Czechia, 1929), Holocaust survivors
Jiri & Zdenek Steiner (MM / Czechia, 1929), Holocaust survivors
- KEYWORDS : <Czechia> <Theresienstadt> <Auschwitz> <Czech Family Camp Auschwitz> <Mengele Twins> <Liberation of Auschwitz>
Biography
The twins were born in Prague, Czechia on May 20, 1929.
Jiri and Zdenek were 13 years old when the family was deported to Theresienstadt in December 1942.
On September 5, 1943, the family was loaded into cattle cars to endure a three-day journey to Auschwitz. There they were put in the Czech Family Camp Auschwitz. In March 1944 the camp was liquidated. Jiri and Zdenek were claimed by Josef Mengele. As the other Mengele Twins they were subjected to his experiments.
When the SS guards forced the prisoners on a death march in January 1945, Jiri and Zdenek hid in the main camp (Auschwitz I). They were liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945. The twins were 15 years old. After liberation, the twins were in the care of a Jewish family, perhaps somewhere in Slovakia. They also spent time in a military orphanage and briefly lived with an aunt who had survived the war. Jiri began training for a job in the chemical industry in Litvinov, Czechoslovakia, and Zdenek trained in a textile factory. In 1947 Zdenek was killed in a car accident.
Jiri spent his life in Czechia. Only once — in March 1966 — did he return to Auschwitz.