A former inmate of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, is seen in 1979, gazing at the ruins of gas chambers where hundreds of people were killed during World War II. The oldest known survivor of Auschwitz, a teacher who gave lessons in defiance of his native Poland’s Nazi occupiers, has died at the age of 108, an official said Monday. Antoni Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern Polish town of Debno, according to Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum. / AP
Antoni Dobrowolski, world’s oldest Auschwitz survivor, dies age 108
Antoni Dobrowolski, the world’s oldest survivor of the German concentration camp, Auschwitz, died in Poland on Sunday. He was 108 years old.
Mr. Dobrowolski, a certified teacher, was arrested and sent to Auschwitz after he continued teaching Polish children against a German decree. When Germany invaded Poland, part of their master plan was to use the Polish as a type of ‘worker colony’. The Germans decided education was not only unnecessary for people who would technically be nothing more than slaves, but that banning education for children above the age of 10 would make the Poles less likely to fight back.
Antoni Dobrowolski, however, continued to offer free education to children in his Polish town as part of an underground movement, the Secret Teaching Organization, which was created to help defeat the German army. He was discovered, captured and sent to Auschwitz and then on to two other concentration camps.
When World War II ended, Dobrowolski returned to Poland and to teaching, eventually becoming a high school principal. His funeral will take place on Wednesday.
According to the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland, more than 5.5 million Poles died as a direct result of World War II, many of them in German concentration camps.
Poor man lived such a horrible life of physical and mental pain. Now he is at peace.
RIP Mr. Dobrowolski
You were a hero and great man.