Albrecht Weinberg, a Holocaust survivor who endured multiple Nazi concentration and death camps and lost most of his family, has died at the age of 101. He passed away in Leer, northwestern Germany, just weeks after his birthday and the premiere of a documentary about his life titled Es Ist Immer in Meinem Kopf (It Is Always in My Head).
A Life of Testimony
Born in Rhauderfehn near Leer on March 7, 1925, Weinberg survived imprisonment at Auschwitz, Mittelbau-Dora, and Bergen-Belsen, as well as three death marches at the end of World War II. After the war, he lived in New York but returned to Germany in his 80s. For 14 years, he tirelessly recounted his horrific experiences to high school students and others, warning against forgetting the past.
Leer's mayor, Claus-Peter Horst, said: "Since returning from New York to his east Frisian home 14 years ago, Albrecht recounted tirelessly and with incredible energy his terrible experiences during the Nazi era and warned again and again against forgetting."
Haunted by Memories
Speaking last year, Weinberg revealed that the memories still plagued him: "I sleep with it, I wake up with it, I sweat, I have nightmares, that is my present." He expressed concern about what would happen when his generation was no longer alive to bear witness: "When my generation is not in this world any more, when we disappear from the world, then the next generation can only read it out of the book."
Returning an Honor
Weinberg was awarded Germany's Order of Merit in 2017 but returned it last year after a parliamentary vote that called for turning back more migrants at Germany's borders passed with the support of a far-right party. The motion was introduced by Friedrich Merz, now the country's chancellor.
Israel's ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, paid tribute on X, calling Weinberg "a bridge – between past and present, between pain and hope, between the dead he could never forget and the young people whom he encouraged to seek the truth."
