Gerhard Durlacher

File:1991 Durlacher.jpg

150px

Gerhard Durlacher (M / Germany, 1928-1996), Holocaust survivor

• KEYWORDS : <Germany> <Refugees> <Netherlands> <Westerbork> <Theresienstadt> <Czech Family Camp Auschwitz> <Birkenau Boys> <Auschwitz> <Death March> <Theresienstadt Deportee Survivors> -- <Netherlands>

• MEMOIRS : Stripes in the Sky (1991)

Overview

Durlacher was born into a liberal Jewish family in Germany . In 1937 he settled in Rotterdam with his parents, after they had fled from the Nazis. The flight was not far enough. The family was arrested on 3 October 1942 and deported to Westerbork transit camp. Then to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. Gerhard Durlacher was one of the Birkenau Boys. Forced into a Death March, he was liberated by the Russians on May 8, 1945. His father perished in Bergen-Belsen, his mother in Stutthof.

From 1964 until the end of 1983 GL Durlacher was a lecturer in sociology at the University of Amsterdam. In 1995 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the same University

It was not until later in life that Durlacher wrote a number of books about his experiences in the Second World War ; as a Jewish boy in Baden-Baden in the book Drenkeling and as a camp prisoner in Strepen aan de Hemel. In the last book, Durlacher sharply criticizes the Allies who did not intervene, although they knew in detail the fate of the Jews in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany.

Durlacher died suddenly in his hometown of Haarlem in July 1996.

Book : Stripes in the Sky (1991)

This biographical reflection of the Holocaust has been written by one of the survivors of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The author considers not only his own fate, but also the role that the world at large, and the Allies in particular, played in the genocide that took place.