Oldest survivor of Auschwitz dies at age 108

Snow-covered tracks photographed from the entrance of Auschwitz-Birkenau during January 1941. / AP / DAPD

WARSAW, Poland Antoni Dobrowolski, an educator who was the oldest known survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, passed away at the age of 108 on Monday, an official said.

Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern Polish town of Debno, according to Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum. The teacher was persecuted for giving lessons during World War II in defiance of his native Poland's Nazi occupiers.

After invading Poland in 1939, sparking World War II, the Germans banned anything beyond four years of elementary education in a bid to crush Polish culture and the country's intelligentsia. The Germans considered the Poles inferior beings, and the education policy was part of a plan to use Poles as a "slave race."

An underground effort by Poles to continue to teach children immediately emerged, with those caught punished by being sent to concentration camps or prisons. Dobrowolski was among the Poles engaged in the underground effort, called the Secret Teaching Organization, according to Polish news outlet Gazeta. He was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz in June 1942.

"Auschwitz was worse than Dante's hell," he recalled in a video made when he was 103.

Dobrowolski, who was born Oct. 8, 1904 in Wolborz, Poland, was later moved from Auschwitz to the concentration camps of Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen, according to the Auschwitz memorial museum in southern Poland. He was liberated in 1945, Gazeta reported.

After the war, he moved to Debno, where he worked as a Polish-language teacher and as principal at an elementary school and later at a high school for many years.

He will be buried in Debno on Wednesday.

At least 1.1 million people were killed by the Germans at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Most of the victims were Jews, but many non-Jewish Poles, Roma and others were also killed there.

[texaswildbabe]

YOU PUT IT PERFECTLY SLOOBY. I COMMENT ON THE SUBJECT. I DON'T PERSONALLY ATTACK ANYONE BY USING THEIR NAME AND CALLING THEM UGLY NAMES. SOME PEOPLE COME ONLINE, NOT TO SAY HOW THEY SIMPLY FEEL ABOUT A SUBJECT, BUT TO PERSONALLY ATTACK SOMEONE.

[Slooby]

People- we have all been put on this earth to help one another and to love one another. No need to be nasty. We of course all have different views and beliefs but do we all not at least believe in the basic human decencies of being considerate, giving and helpful of one another? It doesn't matter what your religion is or what country you are from, can we all just please stand up, live a good, honest, decent life? As parents, let's make sure we raise our children to be come honest, hard working people. As adults, let us all take responsibility for our actions and choices and to blame others or expect people to take care of us. For those that do honestly need help, then it is there for you. Life and this world can be good.

[nfission]

Limiting education? Happened during Hitler's reign, and in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pots reign. Ryan has also spoke of limiting education in America and women's rights. Think these heinous abominable sins against humanity only happen in other countries?

[The_pragmatist2]

NFISSION...please...it's Obama's policies on reducing welfare requirements that are promoting economic slavery in this country. Ever notice that the less people are required to help themselves the more they let education slip by because they don't really need it to collect a check?

[MotocrossSurvivor]

I thought we still had 7 million holocaust survivors.

[AerynCrichton]

Oldest survivor does not mean ONLY survivor. There are many others, just younger than he was.

[hemusbull]

This 108 yrs old was fighting not agains German cultural genocide which was designed to make whole ethnic groups disappear from the map. RIP!

[PourpaixPourpaix]

Remembering doesn't seem to do us any good, as we still lack the courage to stop it. Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Uganda, Rwanda, Darfur, Guatemala, and the recent Iraqi genocide by the Americans. There's too many angry minds looking to bolster their self-esteem by killing those who are different to keep all the little Hitlers from coming to power.

[hamiltongrad]

What kind of idiot are you, comparing our liberation in Iraq to Hitler death and torture camps? Have you no shame ?

[mrleme]

Should we assume you live in America? Maybe you should consider another country, they might not take to kindly to your generalized accusation. Evil will always be, in many forms but still the same. Anger does not equate evil.

[opedanderson2]

Nice of the writer to mention that many non-Jews were killed there too.

[Radur]

A part of history will be buried on Wednesday but it's apart of history that will always be alive in our hearts. Thanks you Antoni Dobrowolski for reminding us education will always make it impossible for us to become victims. RIP