Jurek Rozenek

born in Działoszyce on July 10, 1918 – died in Buenos Aires on January 30, 1995
Persecuted person
Jurek Rozenek shortly after his liberation, 1945.

The Jewish brothers Jurek and Michał Rozenek grew up near Kraków. Their family was moved into the Łódź ghetto in 1940 and in August 1944 taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Their relatives were murdered there; the brothers, however, were transferred to other camps to perform forced labor.
In early April 1945, all prisoners at Rehmsdorf, a sub-camp of Buchenwald concentration camp, were put on open freight cars bound for Theresienstadt. The Rozenek brothers managed to jump off the train in the Ore Mountains region. On April 16 they met Arno Bach from Niederschmiedeberg in a forest. Bach was opposed to the regime and felt sorry for the brothers. He took them to his home after consulting his wife Margarete.
The couple hid the two absolutely exhausted men in a shed behind their house. The situation was particularly dangerous because Michał Rozenek was suffering from tuberculosis and coughing loudly. Arno Bach’s sister, who lived in the same house, her husband, and a further resident also helped the brothers. They were liberated by the Soviet army on May 8, and emigrated to Argentina in 1951.

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