Esther Bejarano, Auschwitz survivor and German Jewish activist, has died

Auschwitz survivor Esther Béjarano, German Jewish artist and anti-fascist activist, died this Saturday in Hamburg (north-western Germany) at the age of 97.

The Anne Frank Training and Political Advice Center and the Auschwitz International Committee, made up of survivors of this Nazi extermination camp, reported the death of this incombustible activist, well known in Germany and honorary president of the Association of persecuted by the regime. Federation of Antifascists (VVN-BDA).

“Esther Bejarano survived Auschwitz because she played the accordion in the concentration camp orchestra. He dedicated his life to music and the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. Tonight he passed away at the age of 97Anne Frank center director Meron Mendel said on Twitter.

Bejarano was deported in April 1943 to Auschwitz, in occupied Poland, barely 18 years old, and there included in the female orchestra of the extermination camp, which played at the entrance when the prisoners went out to work. There he met the Polish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

In November she was transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp as a forced laborer, but in 1945 she managed to escape.. His parents and one of his four sisters were killed by the Nazis.

“For years I had horrible nightmares about that time», He assured in an interview with The mirror Bejarano, who in 2012 received the Federal Grand Cross of Merit.

The reactions were not long in coming in Germany, mainly from the world of culture and politics.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Social Democrat Heiko maas, he assured on Twitter that “we will miss your voice”. “Tonight we have lost an important voice in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. The fantastic Esther Bejarano convinced by her life and her incredible story“, wrote.

The co-president of La Izquierda, Janine Wissler Yes Susanne Hennig Wellsow, underlined his devoted life “in the fight against fascism and against oblivion”. “He is an example for us and his life trajectory is a mission for us,” they said in a statement.

Bejarano was born Esther Loewy on December 15, 1924 in Sarrelouis, German territory then occupied by France since the end of the First World War within a family of Judeo-German artists.

On September 15, 1945, a few months after the end of World War II, he emigrated with his family to the Middle East, but returned to Germany in 1960 and settled in Hamburg.

There he began his career as an activist, at the VVN-BDA and in the German section of the Auschwitz International Committee, which organized guided tours of concentration camps.

In recent decades he had distinguished himself as a witness to the Holocaust, with numerous lectures, also in schools., to fight against oblivion and warn against the extreme right. He also took a clear position in favor of helping refugees..

Holocaust education was key for Bejarano: “You are not to blame for this period. But you beat yourself up if you don’t want to know anything about that time. You have to know everything that has happened. And why did this happen”.

He has recorded five albums, solo and with various musicians, and has appeared in several documentaries on Holocaust survivors. He also wrote several autobiographical novels and published in 2013 a volume of Memories of his entire life.

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