In a sombre moment during the week marking the commemoration of the Shoah and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Gerd Klestadt, a Shoah survivor who endured two Nazi concentration camps as a teenager, has passed away at the age of 92.
Born in Düsseldorf in 1932, Klestadt fled with his family to the Netherlands at the age of four. However, in 1943, they were arrested and detained. Klestadt was first imprisoned at the Westerbork concentration camp in Groningen before being transferred to Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany. He was liberated in April 1945 when British troops freed the Bergen-Belsen camp.
In the 1970s, Klestadt and his second wife, Charlène, settled in Luxembourg. A first-generation witness to the horrors of the Shoah, he became an active advocate for Shoah remembrance starting in 2001. Recently, he published his memoirs, offering a poignant account of his experiences.
In an interview with our colleagues from RTL Radio at the time of the book’s release, Klestadt emphasised that his story serves as a stark reminder of the past and a warning for the present. He expressed dismay that humanity seems to have “learned nothing” from history, noting troubling parallels between past and current events.
His memoir, titled “Noch heute quält mich die Erinnerung” (“The memories still torment me today”), is available in German.
Klestadt, a father of three, was preceded in death by his wife Charlène, who passed away recently.
