Auschwitz survivor Mano Höllenreiner dies aged 92

Auschwitz survivor Mano Höllenreiner died on Friday in his hometown of Mühldorf am Inn in Upper Bavaria, three days before his 93rd birthday, his family told BR.

Höllenreiner, whose first name was Hermann, came from a Sinti family. He received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, was invited as a guest to the Bavarian state parliament and accompanied President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a visit to Auschwitz. After decades of silence, he first spoke to BR in an interview in 2004 about his childhood under Nazi rule.

Born in 1933, Höllenreiner witnessed the persecution of Sinti and Roma intensify. Authorities banned his parents from travelling with their horse-drawn wagon and seized their horses. His father was drafted into the Wehrmacht, and the family was stationed in Lenggries in the Isar valley.

In 1942, his father was expelled from the army on racial grounds and forced to work in Munich, paving Giesinger Berg. In March 1943, the Gestapo took the family from their beds and deported them to Auschwitz-Birkenau in a cattle car. Höllenreiner later recalled that 40 people were packed into each wagon during the eight-day journey, and that some died on the way.

At Auschwitz, Sinti and Roma were held in the so-called Gypsy family camp, in former horse stables. Höllenreiner was subjected to experiments by camp doctor Josef Mengele. He recalled receiving injections and blankets infested with typhus lice, after which he contracted scabies and typhus.

On 2 August 1944, the SS liquidated the camp and sent 3,000 remaining Sinti and Roma to the gas chambers. Höllenreiner and his family had been transferred two weeks earlier. His father and uncle were offered the chance to return to military service in exchange for their families’ release. Instead, the family was sent to other concentration camps, and Mano was taken to Sachsenhausen, north of Berlin, alone.

When the camp was liberated, Höllenreiner was 11, ill, starving and apathetic. A group of liberated French prisoners took him in, and he ended up in Paris, first in a psychiatric hospital and then with foster parents. He had forgotten his name and where he came from. His family found him a year and a half later, identifying him by the concentration camp number tattooed on his arm. More than 100 of his relatives were murdered by the Nazis.

Like many survivors, Höllenreiner said little about his experiences for decades. Author Anja Tuckermann published his life story in the book “Mano: The Boy Who Didn’t Know Where He Was”. He later regularly shared his testimony and took part in remembrance work, particularly in Mühldorf, where he lived.