Herman Shine death: One of few Auschwitz escapees and a voice for Holocaust survivors dies, aged 95

Herman Shine's story of escaping Auschwitz is one of tragedy and hope

Herman Shine, right, a Holocaust survivor, snaps a picture of the SS guards who held him captive in Auschwitz, during an exhibition in Frankfurt

Herman Shine who was one of the few people to escape from Auschwitz – becoming a voice for Holocaust survivors – has died at the age of 95 in his California home.

His story of meeting a woman inside the Nazi’s deadliest killing centre who would later go on to save his life and become his lover during World War Two is one of tragedy and hope. Mr Shine, who was born in Berlin and named Mendel Scheingesicht, was taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp as a teenager before later being sent to one of three subcamps included in Auschwitz.

There he met Marianne Schlesinger, a woman who worked at the camp but was allowed to live at home because she was only half-Jewish. After an exhaustive escape effort that included getting through a fence and traveling over nine miles to hide in a barn, Mr Shine would later marry Ms Schlesinger and emigrate to the US in 1947.

Mr Shine went on to describe his account of working in concentration camps throughout the war to countless Jewish organisations and media publications, detailing the harrowing experiences shared by millions of victims.

“The SS walked around with whips, with sticks, with steel bars, you know; they would beat you for any reason,” he told the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project in 1990.

Mr Shine joined one of his friends during an escape attempt while the two worked together at a construction site near the concentration camp. A labor worker who helped them devise the plan picked them up in the middle of the night with civilian clothing and led them to a nearby hideout.

Eventually, the two travelled to Ms Schlesinger’s home, and her family found them a safe hiding space with a rich German in a villa. They stayed there until the end of the war.

“I am alive thanks to not one but to a dozen miracles,” Mr Shine told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2009.

Less than 200 people managed to escape Auschwitz, of the nearly 1.3 million who were deported to the concentration camp. Mr Shine’s death was caused by complications of kidney failure, friend told the New York Times.

Mr Shine outlived many Holocaust survivors, as well as most of the people who helped him escape from Auschwitz. He later celebrated Jozéf Wrona, the man who helped he and his friend devise the escape plan, when he was named one of the Righteous Among Nations in 1991. That title is reserved for those who helped save Jewish people during the war.

“We want our story to be told to as many people as possible,” Mr Shine told the Los Angeles Times in 1990. “Józef not only risked his life — our lives were worth nothing anyway — but he risked the lives of his entire family and his entire village.”

Mr Shine is survived by his wife, Ms Schlesinger, and their daughter, Sonja.