World's oldest survivor of Auschwitz death camp dies at the age of 108
10/22/2012WARSAW, Poland — An official says the oldest known former prisoner of the Auschwitz death camp has died in Poland at the age of 108.
Jaroslaw Mensfelt, a spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum, says Antoni Dobrowolski died Sunday in the northwestern town of Debno.
The one-time Polish teacher was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz in 1942 for holding underground lessons. After they invaded Poland in 1939, the Germans had banned anything beyond four years of elementary education as they tried to crush Polish culture and the intelligentsia.
Dobrowolski was later moved to the concentration camps of Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen, where he was liberated in 1945.
The Germans killed at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz. Most victims were Jews, but many non-Jewish Poles, Roma and others were also killed.