The first Austrian to be sent to Auschwitz dies at age 106

"I must have spoken to around half a million people all in all," Marko Feingold, who survived four death camps, told AFP.

By RACHEL WOLF
The site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau (photo credit: REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL)
The site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau
(photo credit: REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL)
Marko Feingold, the first Austrian to be sent to Auschwitz, died on Friday at the age of 106.
Feingold survived Auschwitz, Neuengamme, Dachau and Buchenwald, as well as medical experiments conducted by the Nazis.
Feingold was arrested in Prague in 1940 and sent to Auschwitz. “They said I had three months to live,” he told AFP.

 

“And in fact after two and a half months I was about to succumb to exhaustion, when I managed to get transferred to the Neuengamme camp.” From there he was sent to Dachau, and then to Buchenwald.
Feingold was finally freed when American troops liberated Buchenwald in 1945.
He tried to return to Vienna, along with other survivors, but they were turned away. Feingold then decided to settle in Salzburg, in American-occupied territory.
Although he refused to leave Austria, he founded an organization that helped 100,000 Jews immigrate to mandatory Palestine.
Feingold was active and spoke about his experiences at conferences and schools. “I must have spoken to around half a million people all in all,” he told AFP, adding that he swore to himself while in Auschwitz that he would tell his story.