Julius Paltiel

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Julius Paltiel
Auschwitz concentration camp, main gate
Vera Komissar

Julius Paltiel (4 July 1924 – 7 March 2008) was one of the 26 Norwegian Jews who returned from

King Harald V
.

Personal life: as early as 1992, he traveled back to the Auschwitz concentration camp, together with a journalist.[2]

During World War II

During the

Buchenwald
. At the time of his arrival there, Paltiel's weight was 39 kg.

One day, the prisoners got the message that the Scandinavians were going to be released and sent in the

white buses back to their home countries, but to Paltiel's misfortune, Quisling
had removed the Norwegian Jews' citizenship so they were not included on the evacuation lists. On 11 April 1945, Paltiel and four other Norwegian Jews were saved by the Americans, after taking numbered clothing from dead non-Jews.

Death

Paltiel died at the age of 83 and was buried in Trondheim, the city where he was born. The government of Norway decided to honor Paltiel by giving him a state funeral. Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said: "With Julius Paltiel, Norway has lost a central witness from the Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War. As one of the few Norwegian Jews that survived, Paltiel has until the last been a clear voice for all who wanted to learn from his and his generation's experiences."[3]

The funeral was attended by King

Harald V of Norway, Minister of Culture Trond Giske and Evangelical-Lutheran Bishop of Nidaros Finn Wagle
among others.

Family

He was survived by his wife, the Danish-born author Vera Komissar [no], and his two adult children by his first wife Rita who died in 1987.

References

Literature

Further reading

  • Komissar, Vera: På tross av alt: Julius Paltiel - norsk jøde i Auschwitz, Aschehoug 1995, (in Norwegian)