Norwegian Auschwitz survivor dies

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One of the few Norwegian Jews to survive Auschwitz received a royal state burial.

 

Julius Paltiel, who died at 83, was a vocal campaigner against extremism in his native land.

Among those attending his funeral Wednesday in Trondheim were King Harald V and the Norwegian minister for cultural affairs, Trond Giske.

 

Paltiel survived two years of hard labor at Auschwitz and lost most of his family there. He was on the famous1945 death march from Auschwitz to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from where he was liberated by American troops.

 

Paltiel spent much of the rest of his life telling others about what he had experienced in Nazi custody and, according to one of his obituaries, what can happen when extremist forces gain control. He was especially well-known for conducting student field trips back to the death camps of the Nazi regime.

 

Out of the 2,173 Jews who lived in Norway before World War II, 775 died in the Holocaust, nearly all in concentration camps.

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