Holocaust survivor: Esther Bejarano has died

The Hamburg Holocaust survivor and political activist Esther Bejarano died on Saturday night at the age of 96 in Hamburg. This was confirmed by the International Auschwitz Committee on Saturday. Esther Bejarano co-founded the German Auschwitz Committee.

Previously, Meron Mendel, the director of the Anne Frank educational facility in Frankfurt, announced the death news on Twitter. “She has dedicated her life to music and the fight against racism and anti-Semitism,” wrote Mendel.

Bejarano was born Esther Loewy in Saarlouis in 1924. After the Saarland was annexed to Hitler’s Germany in 1935, her family, like all other Jewish Germans, was disenfranchised and persecuted. Loewy’s parents and sister were murdered.

The youth had to do forced labor and was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp in April 1943. There she played the accordion and recorder in a girls’ orchestra set up by the SS.

From Germany to Israel and back

She was later deported to other concentration camps and had to do forced labor. Bejarano was liberated by Allied soldiers in northeast Germany in early May 1945: “Actually, it was Americans and Russians together,” she said in a 2015 SZ interview.

After the Second World War she emigrated to Palestine, served in the Israeli army during the War of Independence in 1948. In Israel she met her husband Nissim. In 1960 the family moved to Hamburg.

In the last few decades Bejarano has appeared as a witness, campaigned against racism and anti-Semitism and advocated helping refugees. She described herself as an active anti-fascist.

In recent years Bejarano has been on stage with the band Microphone Mafia. Even after the corona pandemic subsided, Bejarano wanted to perform again. At the end of June 2021, she canceled appointments for health reasons.

She fell asleep peacefully early Saturday morning and did not suffer, said Helga Obens, a close friend and board member of the Auschwitz Committee, now the dpa. Already in the evening it became clear that it would be her last hours. She was surrounded by friends in the Israelite Hospital.