Curriculum Vitae

of

Ing. WIESENTHAL, Szymon

Born on December 31, 1908, in Buczacz, Poland. My education comprises public and high schools in that city, Institute of Technology in Prague where I received the degree of Engineer in Architecture (1932), State diploma in Architectural Engineering in Poland (1939) with simultaneous degree of Free Artist from the Polish Academy of Art in Lemberg (1937).

After the outbreak of the war I stayed in Lemberg and after the entry of the Red Army continued my work as a construction engineer and a designer of refrigerating plants and other various constructions as well as private dwellings. During this period I invented an artificial insulation material for which the Soviet Government awarded me a premium of 25,000 rubles.

When after the outbreak of the German-Soviet war that city was taken by the German troops, I was immediately arrested on July 13, 1941, as one of the Jewish intelligentsia. Of independent means, through a bribery I succeeded in getting out of the prison. Because of the anti-Jewish restrictions I could not continue my profession of an architect, and worked for a while as a painter in the railroad shops in Lemberg . On October 20, 1941 I was again arrested for the reason of not having declared my engineering degrees which I in fact did not wish to disclose, not willing to work for the Germans. After four weeks I was sent back to work at the same railroad shop as a draftsman where I was kept for almost two years among other 1500 Jews compelled to labor like myself. It was during this time that my life was several times placed in extreme danger, and that I lost both of my parents who were killed by the Nazis. It was also during this time that I saw mass destruction of Jews in that city, although my own wife managed to escape to Warzsaw. Of her I have not heard since and may only assume that she perished in that city during the uprising in August, 1944, when 200,000 Jews lost their lives there. It was only through working in the railroad shop that I managed to survive in the end.

When it became clear to me that Nazis have launched their policy of the wholesale annihilation of Jews, I escaped on October 18, 1943 from the Lemberg hard labor camp where I was kept as a prisoner during my two years of labor at the railroad works (as a prisoner I was sent to the shop daily under guard with the others) and went into hiding until joining Jewish partisans on November 21, 1943 who operated there. It was while fighting in the partisan ranks against the Nazis that we managed to collect and bury for safekeeping considerable amount of evidence and other materials proving the crimes committed by Nazis. When the partisans were dispersed by the Germans I fled to Lemberg on February 10, 1944 and again went into hiding. On June 13, 1944, I was found during a house to house search and was immediately sent to the famous Lacki camp, near that city. Since there was no escape for the partisans who were caught, I attempted suicide by cutting the veins on my arms but was saved.

With the beginning of the Russian offensive, I was sent from one concentration camps to another as the result of constant German retreat. These camps include Przemysl, Dobromil, Chyrow, Sanok, Dukla, Grybow, Neu-Sandez, Krakow-Plashow, Grossrosen , and Buchenwald. To Mauthausen I came on February 15, 1945.

/s/ Ing. Wiesenthal Szymon

Ing. Szymon WIESENTHAL