Kurt Julius Goldstein, a Holocaust survivor who was active on the International Auschwitz Committee, has died.
Goldstein, who was 93 and living in Berlin at the time of his death, fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and fought in Spain against Franco’s fascist state. He was deported from France to Auschwitz in 1942. Goldstein, who spent 2 1/2 years in concentration camps, was liberated from Buchenwald in April 1945.
Goldstein, a journalist and radio director in communist East Germany, became involved with the International Auschwitz Committee in 1976. Since 2003 he was honorary president of the Berlin-based group.
“All his life he has tried to unite survivors of concentration camps,” said Noah Flug, the president of the committee, in a statement from Jerusalem. “He found conections between East and West, and fought for reparations and respect for the former prisoners around the world.”
Goldstein, who called for a united front against neo-Nazism, received Germany’s highest honor, the Federal Cross of Merit, in 2005. He was an honorary citizen of Spain.
