Auschwitz survivor Hermann 'Mano' Höllenreiner dies at 92
The Sinto from Munich was deported at the age of nine and survived three concentration camps. Late in life he became a prominent witness to the Holocaust and was awarded Germany's Order of Merit in 2013.
Archive image · Photo: Oleg Yunakov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Holocaust survivor Hermann Höllenreiner, known as "Mano", has died at the age of 92, his publisher Hanser and the International Auschwitz Committee said. He died on Oct. 16 in Mettenheim near Mühldorf am Inn in Bavaria, surrounded by his family.
Born into a large Sinti family in Munich, Höllenreiner was deported at nine and survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen. In January 1945, aged 11, he escaped from a death march, later lived in France and was reunited with his family in Munich at the end of 1946.
"Only late in his life did he begin to tell his story," said Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee. Karl Freller of the Bavarian Memorials Foundation said the Sinti and Roma had lost an important voice.