Wolfgang Adler

Wolfgang Adler / Sinai Adler (M / Czechia, 1928), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Theresienstadt Ghetto> <Czech Family Camp Auschwitz> <Auschwitz> <Death March> <Mauthausen> <Gunskirchen> -- <Czechia> <England> <Windermere Children>

• MEMOIRS : Your Rod and Your Staff: A Young Man’s Chronicle of Survival (1996)

Biography

Wolfgang Adler was born July 11, 1928 in Prague, Czechia. He was deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto on March 6, 1943, and from there to the Czech Family Camp Auschwitz on May 18, 1944. He survived the liquidation of the camp, while his parents were murdered. In January 1945 he was sent on a death march to Mauthausen and Gunskirchen, where he was liberated.

After liberation, he went to back to Prague, where he was hosted with other orphans at the Stirin Castle. In August 1945 he joined the Windermere Children and went to England. After six months he emigrated to Israel, where he became a rabbi.

Book (1996)

• Your Rod and Your Staff: A Young Man’s Chronicle of Survival (1996)

Originally written in Hebrew.

The last 28 pages, appended to the English edition, contain an eyewitness account by U.S. General Willard G. Wyman, as well as two other servicemen, describing the liberation of Gunskirchen. The text was produced just after the war as a military press pamphlet.

USHMM oral interview

Sini Adler, born in 1928, discusses his childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); being the only Jewish family in his neighborhood; increasing anti-Jewish restrictions; not knowing about what was happening to Poland’s Jewish community through 1942; being deported to Terezin in March 1943; maintaining his Jewish identity in the camp; being deported to Birkenau in May 1944 in cattle cars; daily life in the camp; being moved to a forced labor camp; the death of his parents; the role his faith played in his survival; being forced to march from Auschwitz in January 1945; the Red Army’s approach; being moved by cattle car for 2 to 3 weeks; arriving in Mauthausen and then Gunskirchen; liberation by the Americans in May 1945; returning to Prague and living in refugee centers; going to England for 6 months; immigrating by boat to Palestine; landing in Jaffa; living in Israel; and his book he published.

Sources

• USHMM Database (Wolfgang Adler, 1928) -- YES
• 45aid.org (Wolfgang Adler, n.d.) -- YES