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Auschwitz survivor who came face to face with Nazi 'Angel of Death' but escaped being sent to the gas chambers after lying about his age tells how he found love with fellow Holocaust victim, 89, following wife's death
Daily Mail ^ | Jan 27 | By HARRY HOWARD, HISTORY CORRESPONDENT

Posted on 01/26/2025 9:06:35 PM PST by RandFan

The victim of Nazi terror, 92, who spoke to MailOnline to mark Holocaust Memorial Day today, came face to face with twisted doctor Josef Mengele after being taken to Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland with his mother and eight of his siblings in 1944.

Then aged just 12, Ivor was destined for death along with nearly all other Jewish children who were sent to the camp with their families during the Holocaust.

Heartrendingly, his mother forced Ivor, who was big for his years, to stand in the line of able-bodied men, minutes before she and seven of his siblings were sent to the gas chambers. 'That saved my life,' he says.

Ivor remembers how, on coming face to face with Mengele - who would determine the fate of arrivals with a point of his finger - he said he was 16. Had he given the mass murderer his real age, he would not be here.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
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Woah. He lied to Mengele and it saved him.

Today is 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.

1 posted on 01/26/2025 9:06:35 PM PST by RandFan
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To: RandFan

One of the reasons we must remember the Holocaust and its details is to remember all the acts of valor amidst the evil. All the examples of people who, facing death for themselves, did not simply wallow helplessly in despair but gave thought for others around them and did whatever they could for them. God bless them.


2 posted on 01/26/2025 9:26:06 PM PST by EnderWiggin1970
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To: RandFan

Bless him and congrats.


3 posted on 01/26/2025 9:39:13 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within ? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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To: RandFan
Anyone thats interested enough to read this, if you havent already, read Viktor Frankls "Mans Search For Meaning". The first half is titled "Experiences in a Concentration Camp". Frankl cheated death and survived through multiple amazing circumstances. https://viktorfranklamerica.com/viktor-frankl-bio/
4 posted on 01/26/2025 10:07:08 PM PST by know.your.why
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To: know.your.why

I gave this to a friend who was dying of cancer.... I would have given him a Bible but as a Christian, he was already well read in the Bible and had accepted Christ. Anyway, he couldn’t thank me enough and said that outside of Scripture, it was the most meaningful thing he had ever read....


5 posted on 01/26/2025 10:16:33 PM PST by hecticskeptic
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To: RandFan

Lied about his age?

That’s what Elie Wiesel did too, he said a “Trusty” helping unload the cattle cars told him to do that.

Everyone should read his book “Night”.


6 posted on 01/26/2025 10:44:17 PM PST by 1066AD
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To: 1066AD

When the books are gone, history will be easier to revise.


7 posted on 01/26/2025 11:06:13 PM PST by Gene Eric
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To: RandFan
Yes by the Red Army's 322nd.Rifle Regiment. There were a few thousand survivors the SS didn't bother to finish off. Including quite a number of young children, Twins. Mengele, “Herr Doktor’’, that sick bastard did the most horrible things to them.

In high school I read Eugene Kogon’s ‘The Theory And Practice of Hell/ The German Concentration Camps And The System Behind Them''. A nightmare insight to a brutal state within a state and a society without law. Still beggars belief that within living memory that a nation of people, one of the cultured and advanced could establish as law the extermination of an entire race of human being as a matter of state policy. and there are still those living who survived the horror and those who fought so courageously to end it. Maybe God forbid it ever happening again.

8 posted on 01/27/2025 1:30:19 AM PST by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots.)
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To: jmacusa

I saw a documentary made in the 70s interviewing average Germans at the time (housewives etc). Most were oblivious and considered what was going on a vicious rumor, even outright lies etc. when the topic came up by more courageous counterparts.

They were so heavily brainwashed they would not accept it

Some did know what was going on and actually fed and hid Jewish people or otherwise helped them when possible.


9 posted on 01/27/2025 2:11:22 AM PST by RandFan
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To: rlmorel

Story is worth the read.


10 posted on 01/27/2025 2:29:24 AM PST by linMcHlp
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To: know.your.why

Will look for this.


11 posted on 01/27/2025 2:50:34 AM PST by sauropod (Make sure Satan has to climb over a lot of Scripture to get to you. John MacArthur Ne supra crepidam)
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To: RandFan

Corrie Ten Boom.


12 posted on 01/27/2025 2:52:36 AM PST by sauropod (Make sure Satan has to climb over a lot of Scripture to get to you. John MacArthur Ne supra crepidam)
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To: RandFan

When I visited Auschwitz, the room filled with the 30,000 pairs of children’s shoes, left when they were executed, was the most sickening of the place.

It was even worse than standing in the gas chamber next to the cremation ovens.

Every human on earth should be shown that facility. It’s a life changer.


13 posted on 01/27/2025 2:55:31 AM PST by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: linMcHlp

Thank you-I have bookmarked it to read.


14 posted on 01/27/2025 3:52:21 AM PST by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: RandFan
"Most were oblivious and considered what was going on a vicious rumor, even outright lies "

You mean, like those who today think it's Ok to chop the sexual organs off children who have been brainwashed by their teachers into thinking that they are of the opposite gender? Maybe the future Mengele of today might be named Fauci?

15 posted on 01/27/2025 4:13:49 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (Freud: projection is a defense mechanism of those struggling with inferiority complexes)
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To: hecticskeptic
"...it was the most meaningful thing he had ever read...."

Reminds me of a Readers Digest interview they did with actor/comedian Tim Allen. Allen went to prison for five years for drug trafficking in 1978. RD asked him "If there was just one experience in prison that profoundly changed you what would it be?" Allen said that he read the book Man's Search for Meaning and it changed his life forever. Thats what got me to read it the first time. My favorite quotes from the author Viktor Frankl are:

“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”

And...

“He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how.”
16 posted on 01/27/2025 4:59:18 AM PST by know.your.why
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To: know.your.why

Amazing and inspiring book. Read it about 60 years ago.


17 posted on 01/27/2025 5:22:42 AM PST by Bigg Red (My long-time tagline has been removed and will be stored on my home page as it has proved true.)
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To: jmacusa

Also unbelievable is that you have people today who seem eager to commit genocide against the Jews yet again. Prayers up.


18 posted on 01/27/2025 5:25:03 AM PST by Bigg Red (My long-time tagline has been removed and will be stored on my home page as it has proved true.)
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To: jmacusa

“ Maybe God forbid it ever happening again.”

Russia
China
Cambodia
Rwanda

L


19 posted on 01/27/2025 5:29:41 AM PST by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: RandFan

“They were so heavily brainwashed they would not accept it”

Sounds like modern day democrats.


20 posted on 01/27/2025 5:41:28 AM PST by No Party Affiliation
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