Holocaust survivor and educator Manfred Goldberg dies aged 95
Manfred Goldberg, a Holocaust survivor who devoted his life to teaching schoolchildren about the genocide of European Jews during World War II, has died at the age of 95.
Mr. Goldberg was just 11 years old when he, his mother Rosa, and his younger brother Hermann were transported to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia and the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland in 1941.
After his liberation by the British army in May 1945, Mr. Goldberg and his mother moved to England the following year to be reunited with his father, who had fled just before the war began. His younger brother did not survive.
He was awarded the title of MBE by the King in September for his services to Holocaust remembrance and education.
“He was truly extraordinary,” said Karen Pollock, executive director of the Holocaust Education Foundation. “Manfred understood the power of education. He spent decades sharing his story with young people across the country.”
At the beginning of the year, Mr Goldberg visited children in Shropshire to talk about his experiences. Describes “hell on earth” This followed when the Nazis closed the Jewish school in his native Germany in 1930 and deported him.
From then on until he was imprisoned in various concentration camps, Mr. Goldberg’s brother was taken away and his “fate remains unknown,” according to the foundation’s statement.
When Mr. Goldberg came to England, he learned English and received his engineering degree. Learning was important to him, as he believed he was “deprived of education as a young child.”
He met his wife, Shary, in 1961 and had four sons, several grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.
Mr. Goldberg visited a school in Newport earlier this year, when Holocaust Remembrance Day marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Jan. 27, 1945.
“My purpose in coming here is to make sure that what happened is never forgotten and never happens again,” he told the students.
He said: “When people understand what the Holocaust represents, I think each of them will contribute to preventing it from happening again.
“Silence does no good for the oppressed.”
Between 1939 and 1945, more than six million Jewish men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis.
Hundreds of thousands of Roma, as well as gay men and political opponents of the Nazis, were killed by the regime.
