81 years ago today, on his 15th birthday, Zvi Steinitz saw his family for the last time. On June 1, 1942, a selection takes place in the Krakow ghetto: the parents and brother are deported to the Belzec extermination camp and murdered there.
Zvi Steinitz was born in Poznań in 1927. With his parents and younger brother, he had to flee his hometown when war broke out and ended up in Krakow. From 1941 to 1942 he lived there in the ghetto. After selection, he was first deported to the Plaszow concentration camp and from there to Auschwitz. In 1945 he reached Sachsenhausen via various other concentration camps, from where he was driven on a death march towards Schwerin. At Raven Steinfeld, he is finally freed by units of the American army. After the war, he emigrated to Palestine. There he met his future wife, Regina Anders, who had survived the Holocaust in Berlin. They are building a new life for themselves in Israel. In 2011, they both told their life stories to the Stiftung Denkmal in interviews, which can be seen on the website www.sprechentrotzallem.de. In August 2019, Zwi Steinitz passed away at the age of 92.
Image: Zwi Steinitz 2014 in Berlin © Mike Schmidt
