80 years after liberation: In conversation with a Montrealer who survived Auschwitz

January 27th marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp and the International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Holocaust.

Montrealer George Reinitz was deported to Auschwitz from Hungary at the age of 12. He survived but lost his entire immediate family.

“You don’t know from day to day what’s going to take place. If you look at an officer the wrong way it could bring you to death,” said Reinitz. “A life of hunger, which was the biggest issue, I was lucky when I had my father with me who gave me, his, part of his food.”

At the camp, Reinitz had developed pneumonia and his father had brought him to an emergency clinic. 

“There was a [doctor] who looked after me and, and gave me injections to keep my fever high,” he said. “When the German doctor came around, he said, I have to keep him here for a few more days.”

In mid-January 1945, Soviet forces were approaching. Reinitz says he could hear “Russian guns not too far from Auschwitz.”

The camp’s prisoners were forced to evacuate by German units and were marched on foot toward the center of the German Reich.

Reinitz learned that his father died on one of these death marches from a fellow prisoner.

“He no interest in walking,” said Reinitz about his father’s final moments. “He said, ‘I lost my son, I lost my family. I’m not interested to continue walking anymore.'”

The German guards left the camp for some time, but returned a few weeks later, shooting at the prisoners who had broken into the food stores.

Again Reinitz survived, but one of the people next to him was shot and killed. Only a few hundred prisoners were left. They were lined up in front of machine guns–the guards held fire, waiting for the order to come in. 

“We were standing there for about two hours. That was, I remember very well, a Thursday afternoon. We were waiting to be shot. I said to my friend next to me, I said, listen, I, I want to say goodbye to you,” Reinitz recalled.

“And, all of a sudden, they had a radio communication and they were waving, saying ‘let’s go,’ because they thought the Russians were very close by,” he said. “They picked up the machine guns and they were practically running after the truck to escape.”

That was the last time Reinitz saw the German soldiers. He spent time in a Russian camp before returning to Hungary. At the age of 16, he immigrated to Canada.

He built a life for himself in Montreal, becoming a world-class wrestler and businessman. He is proud of his family–boasting of three daughters, seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. He was married to his wife Eleanor for over 60 years, until her death a year ago. 

“When she died, her last words were I love you.”

Reinitz feels a responsibility to share his message to future generations. 

“Us survivors like to say as a message: don’t follow a leader who is not good for you, and you have to make sure you are an independent mind, and you decide what you want.”