He was 101 years old: Holocaust survivor Guy Stern is dead

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The Hildesheim resident’s autobiography (“We are only a few left”) was published by the publisher in German on the occasion of his 100th birthday on January 14, 2022. As a 15-year-old, Stern managed to escape alone to an uncle in the US in 1937, which was then called Günther. His parents and younger siblings were among the nearly six million Jews murdered by the National Socialists.

In the US, Stern joined a special unit of the US Army that interrogated German prisoners of war in Europe from 1944 until the end of the war. After the war, he studied Romance languages ​​and German studies and then taught at numerous American and German universities, the publisher further announced. Since his retirement in 2002, he has been director of the Institute for Altruism Research at the Holocaust Museum in Detroit.

Stern, who died Thursday (Dec. 7), was co-founder of the Lessing Society, vice president of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and president of the PEN Center for German-Speaking Authors Abroad.

The scientist received numerous awards, including the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Goethe Medal and honorary citizenship of Hildesheim. He was married to the German writer Susanna Piontek and lived in the American state of Michigan.

Even in his old age, Stern gave lectures, often to young people. In 2019 he spoke in the Lower Saxony state parliament. In a dpa interview in February 2022, he said that the achievements of democracy should not be carelessly endangered. “A democracy is a delicate plant that can die at any time if it is not properly cared for,” Stern told dpa. “We can currently clearly observe what is happening around the world in countries where – often democratically elected – ‘strongmen’ are increasingly expanding their radius of power and increasingly restricting the freedoms of their people.” (SDA)

Source: Blick