Commemoration days – Newsletter 8 – 2017

Commemoration days

Ludwig Wörl50 years ago

Ludwig Wörl
(1906−1967) died on August 27, 1967. A Munich native, he was arrested while
handing out leaflets in May 1934 and taken to Dachau. In his function as nurse at
the inmate infirmary, he was able to save the lives of many prisoners. He
continued his humanitarian relief efforts after being transferred to Auschwitz
concentration camp in August 1942. After his liberation from Ebensee, a subcamp
of Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945, Wörl became involved with various
organizations for persons who suffered under Nazi persecution. His testimony as
a witness in the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial (1961–1965) was instrumental in
helping to convict the responsible SS men. His merits were honored by the Yad
Vashem Memorial in 1963 with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”.

 

Porträt Georg Charpak25 years ago

Georges Charpak
(1924-2010), professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Paris,
member of staff of the CERN nuclear research center (Canton of Geneva) and
survivor of Dachau concentration camp, won the Physics Nobel Prize on October
14, 1992. He came from a Jewish family in eastern Poland and received his
schooling in Paris. When the Nazis occupied France, he used forged papers to
join the French Resistance. He was arrested, but could conceal his Jewish
origins. In Juli 1944 he was put to forced labor at the Landsberg/Lech subcamp
of Dachau concentration camp. He returned to Paris after the liberation in
April 1945, was able to get a degree at the French elite university for
engineers, and finally received his doctorate in experimental nuclear physics
from the Collège de France. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for inventing and
developing particle detectors.

 

Jurij Piskunow10 years ago

Jurij Piskunov (1926−2007)
died in Kiev on September 11, 2007. He came from Zaporizhia in Ukraine where,
as a seventeen-year-old railroad worker, he was arrested for sabotage and
severely maltreated. He came to Dachau concentration camp by way of Mauthausen
concentration camp in November 1943. He failed in his attempt to smuggle out of
the camp a German newspaper he had found in some air-raid ruins while working. For
this reason, Piskunov was punished by having to spend several excruciating days
in a Stehzelle (a cell so small that he could only stand up) in the detention
bunker. His description of these conditions of detention counts as some of the
most impressive testimony on the camp prison. Piskunov returned to Ukraine after
he was freed. He was his country’s representative in the Comité International
de Dachau (CID) for the rest of his life, and a regular guest and contemporary
eyewitness at the Youth Meetings in Dachau..

Photos: Ludwig Wörl © KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, George Charpak © The Nobel Foundation, Jurij Piskunov © Elija Boßler

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