BerlinAP —
Albrecht Weinberg, who survived several Nazi concentration and extermination camps and lost most of his family in the Holocaust before returning to Germany in his 80s, has died at the age of 101, authorities in his hometown announced Tuesday.
Weinberg died in Lehr, northwestern Germany, a few weeks after his birthday, the city announced, after hundreds of guests attended the premiere of the film about his life, “Es ist immer in meinem Kopf” (“Always on my mind”).
“Since returning from New York to his home in East Frisia 14 years ago, Albrecht has spoken with vigor and incredible energy about his harrowing experiences during the Nazi era, and he has repeatedly warned us not to forget,” Mayor Klaus-Peter Holst said.
Weinberg was born on March 7, 1925 in Lauderveen, near Lehr, and survived imprisonment in Auschwitz, Mittelbau-Dora, Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and three death marches at the end of World War II. He spent years teaching high school students and others about the atrocities he had to go through.
In a speech last year, Weinberg said that memories of his wartime experiences still haunt him. “I sleep with this, I wake up with this, I sweat, I have nightmares. That’s my gift,” he said.
He said he was worried about what would happen if he was gone to testify.
“When my generation is no longer in this world, when we disappear from the world, the next generation can only read it from books,” he said.
Mr. Weinberg was awarded the German Order of Merit in 2017, but returned it in protest at last year’s parliamentary vote, backed by far-right parties, of current Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s motion to turn back more migrants at Germany’s borders.
Ron Prosser, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, said in a post on X that he knew Weinberg well and paid tribute to him as “a bridge between past and present, pain and hope, between the dead who can never be forgotten and the young people he encouraged in the search for truth.”
