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An Auschwitz Survivor - Freddie Knoller
Eighty Five year old Freddie recounts his life under the Nazis
starting as a 12 yr old child.
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Life Was Swell Until The Nazis Showed Up
Freddie was born in Vienna on April 17, 1921, into what he
describes as a "loving family". His book-keeper father provided a
solid, middle-class upbringing for his three sons. It was, Freddie
says, "a wonderful childhood".
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Germany Annexes Austria
But a month before Freddie's 17th birthday, this childhood came
to an abrupt end. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria and
enforced stringent anti-semitic laws.
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Freddie Hide Out In Belgium
Freddie was sent to a refugee camp in Belgium by his
parents, who told him they would find him "soon".
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Freddie Goes To Paris
After two happy years at the camp, Freddie ran away to France to
avoid the advancing Nazis. Here, despite the J' (for Jew) on his
passport, he was sent to a war camp for enemies of the allies in St
Cyprian, on the border between France and Spain, before escaping when
the Germans arrived two months later. It was now August 1940.
Freddie fled to the south coast of France and then to occupied Paris,
where he gained false identity papers and began a new life as a
Frenchman called Robert Metzmer.
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He Is Now A Hustler For Nazis
For a year, he earned a living introducing German soldiers to the
red-light district in Montmartre, before an order from the Gestapo to
work for them as a translator compelled him to break away and join the
French Resistance.
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Freddie Becomes A Partisan
When the Gestapo orders him to work for them as a translator, he
breaks away and join the French Resistance.
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Now He Is Off To Auschwitz
A few weeks later, Freddie found himself on a train to Auschwitz -
a journey he will never forget.
"It was terrible. For three days we had no food," he says. "We had one
bucket for sanitary purposes.
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He Is Tattooed
When they arrived, the men were sent to Auschwitz III, or Buna-Monowitz.
Women and children were taken away in trucks and never seen again.
After having his hair shaved off and a number - 157103 - tattooed onto
his arm, Freddie was finally given food: a bowl of soup.
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Saw Thousands Of Jews Kill Themselves
Many inmates couldn't take it, electrocuting themselves on the wire
fence. But such despair never occurred to Freddie, who "had a
different outlook and took things as they came".
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The Auschwitz Death March
A glimmer of hope that the end of their ordeal was near was October
1944, when Russian artillery fire was heard in the east. But for many,
hope came too soon. Half of the surviving prisoners died in a freezing
15-mile hike from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz in January 1945: the infamous
death march.
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He Saw Jews Eating Each Other
"There was no food left," he says. "I saw people cutting out flesh
from bodies and roasting it behind the barracks. There were dead
people everywhere."
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