Sam Pivnik

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Sam Pivnik (born Szmuel Pivnik; 1 September 1926,

On 27 December 1943, Pivnik was admitted to the prisoner infirmary in the Quarantine area KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau, B IIa, Block 9, with suspected typhus. He says that he survived several 'selections' and on 11 January 1944 was admitted to the main prisoners' hospital[2] at KL-Auschwitz II-Birkenau B IIf.^{[citation needed]}

Following his recovery from typhus, Pivnik was selected for a work detail to go to KL Auschwitz III/

He spent the next three months on construction work before he – together with approximately 200 other former Fürstengrube prisoners – were evacuated by barge along the River Elbe to Holstein in northern Germany. In Holstein, the prisoners were assigned to farm labour, with Pivnik himself sent to work at Schmidt's parents' farm at Neuglasau, Segeberg, Schleswig-Holstein.^[3]

At the beginning of May 1945, Pivnik and other former Fürstengrube prisoners, were marched to the port of

Within hours of Pivnik boarding, the flotilla was attacked by fighter-bombers of the Royal Air Force and both Cap Arcona and Thielbek were set on fire and sunk. As one of the last to board, Pivnik was on an upper deck and able to jump from the ship and eventually swim ashore. Out of approximately 7,000 prisoners on board the two ships, no more than 500 survived.^[4]

Pivnik was liberated by the British Army in Neustadt on 4 May 1945. Sam's memoir Survivor – Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom was published on 30 August 2012.^[5] He died exactly five years later in London on 30 August 2017, two days before his 91st birthday.^[1]

References

External links

• Interview, iwm.org.uk; accessed 2 September 2017.