The Boy Who Followed His Father Into Auschwitz

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2020

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the most remarkable father and son story I have ever come across.

We are still marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz here at History Hit and this time I am talking to historian Jeremy Dronfield about an astonishing true story of horror, love and impossible survival. In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was arrested by the Nazis. Along with his sixteen-year-old son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany, where a new concentration camp was being built.

They helped build Buchenwald, young Fritz learning construction skills which would help preserve him from extermination in the coming years. But it was his bond with his father that would ultimately keep them both alive. When the fifty-year-old Gustav was transferred to Auschwitz--a certain death sentence--Fritz was determined to go with him. His wiser friends tried to dissuade him--"If you want to keep living, you have to forget your father," one said. Instead Fritz pleaded for a place on the Auschwitz transport. "He is a true comrade," Gustav wrote in his secret diary, "always at my side. The boy is my greatest joy. We are inseparable."

Gustav kept his diary hidden throughout his six years in the death camps--even Fritz knew nothing of it.

We talked about this very rare diary, Fritz's own accounts, and other eyewitness testimony, and built a picture of this extraordinary father and son team.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello History Hit listeners, as you are listening to this right now at this exact second I am
0:05.8	currently on an epic cross-country road trip of England. 600 miles and 1 million years of history
0:14.4	from the first humans through to Stonehenge, Dovercastle, Hastings up to Ironbridge in the
0:19.3	Black Country and to the northeast where I'm visiting a Cold War bunker in York.
0:25.0	I want to hear from you. I want to do more stops. Tell me when I should stop. Any local tips or
0:29.8	hints that you want to share or you want to see me report on on my social media channels and Twitter
0:34.1	and Instagram etc. just send me a message ds.hh at historyhit.com. That's delta Sierra.
0:41.4	. hotel hotel at historyhit.com or tweet me at the History Guy. You can keep up with the road trip
0:47.4	this week on Instagram and Twitter at the History Guy on both and then you can hear the whole thing as a
0:52.1	podcast series next week. Thanks and enjoy this episode.
1:02.5	Hi everybody welcome. Welcome to Dance Know's History Hit. We in the UK have been pummeled by
1:08.6	a great storm. In fact two great storms last week. One of the biggest Atlantic storms that's ever
1:13.2	hit these shores. It's had me thinking that I must have podcasted about the great storm of the
1:18.6	early 18th century. I think it was the autumn of 1703 and the wind blew so hard it knocked over
1:25.9	thousands of oak trees in the New Forest prime trees for building naval ships scattered. English
1:32.5	fleet in the channels sinking naval ships ripped the roofs off many churches. It was a heck of a storm.
1:39.1	It was a heck of a storm. It blew apparently because God was angry at the English. Well we don't know
1:46.1	if the great deity is angry at the brits at the moment. Wouldn't blame him or her if they were.
1:52.2	I just actually have to remember the the Eddison lighthouse blew away. I imagine I'm miserable. That
1:55.9	must have been people huddled on that lighthouse. It was built on the Eddison rock and it was just
2:02.5	entire things swept away. No trace of them or the lighthouse left behind. I always thought that was
2:06.7	haunting. That must have been a grim night. Anyway if you're hold up by the storm please listen to
	...

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