Arrested for pimping

‘Why we must not forget the Holocaust’

  • A Holocaust survivor tells BBC News Online how he believes the event should be remembered, following the announcement that London will host next year’s fifth National Holocaust Memorial Day.

When Freddie Knoller walked free from the Belsen-Bergen concentration camp on 15 April 1945 he swore he would tell the world about what he saw.

[…]

Prostitutes

Mr Knoller had ended up at Auschwitz via Paris’ red light district and “thanks” to a girlfriend who handed him over to the Gestapo.

Deported from Vienna to France, he found work in Paris as a young man securing prostitutes for the German soldiers.

It was dangerous work, even though he had false papers.

If ever he was asked about his accent, he would tell them he was from Alsace-Lorraine, near the German border.

“I would tell them: ‘I am happy to have you here in my country’. It was all fairy tales.”

He eventually won their confidence but it backfired: the Germans asked him to work for them as an interpreter.

He fled Paris to join the French resistance.

“I met a young girl who I thought I was in love with but we fought. I told her I wanted her to have nothing to do with me.

“She then handed me over. She knew where in the hills I was staying.”

[…]

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/3913991.stm

Published: 2004/07/21 17:04:15 GMT

© BBC MMIV