"I am alive! It is a miracle from G'd"
START Origin Home Discrimination Emigration SS St Louis Camp Odyssey New Life
Mina
Markus
Jakob and Frieda
Oskar
Salo
Leon
 Salo (foreground left) working as a slave labourer on the re-alignment of the Elbe at Neuengamme concentration camp. Slave labourers building the V2 rocket in an underground tunnel at Dora. Postcard dd 26th April 1945 from Salo Blechner, Bergen-Belsen, to his brother Jakob in Zürich. Munich 1945, Salo Blechner Salo at his father's grave in Munich. The family had kept the death of his father a secret from him.
Postcard dd 30th January 1944 from Salo Blechner to his brother, Jakob.
Temporary Pass for Salo after his release from Bergen-Belsen.
Postcard dd 30th January 1944 from Salo Blechner to his brother, Jakob. Temporary Pass for Salo after his release from Bergen-Belsen.
Entry list of 13.9.1939, Sachsenhausen showing Salo Blechner.
Entry list of 13.9.1939, Sachsenhausen showing Salo Blechner.
Entry list of 13.9.1939, Sachsenhausen showing Salo Blechner.
Letter (undated) from Salo Blechner in Neuengamme concentration camp relayed via Hans and Trude Bauchwitz, Berlin to Jakob

Camp Odyssey

Salo, the second youngest son of the family flees to Berlin after the arrest of his father in September 1939.

But the arrest of Polish citizens is taking place throughout the Reich. On the 13th September, shortly after his arrival in Berlin, Salo is arrested and taken to Sachsenhausen and not long after to Neuengamme. He has to help build the camp.

On the 23rd October 1942 he is transferred to Auschwitz-Monowitz. In January 1945, as the Soviet army advances, Auschwitz is evacuated and the prisoners are taken on a "death march" to other camps. Salo survives and arrives at Dora-Mittelbau on 4th February 1945, where he works underground in the tunnels as a slave-labourer. Once again, Salo is moved in March/April 1945 to Belsen. British soldiers liberate the camp on the 15th April 1945.

After six years in concentration camp and forced labour Salo returns to Munich. He looks for his family and tries to emigrate to the USA.