1940 – 1950: The Holocaust and Emigrating to America
In February 1943, after two years of slave labor, Siegbert and his family were transported to Auschwitz. His mother and other members of his family were sent immediately to the gas chamber. Siegbert survived the first of more than a dozen selections by pretending to be older than sixteen and a master toolmaker. His father was bludgeoned by guards and died in Siegbert’s arms. He spent the next twenty-three months in Auschwitz. In May 1945, after two death marches, Siegbert was liberated from concentration camp Mauthausen by the American forces. Siegbert felt such gratitude for his American rescuers that he spent the next two years assisting the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps in tracking down Nazi guards and Gestapo operatives in Austria and Bavaria. He emigrated to America in December 1947, weighing only 98 pounds, with only a few dollars and knowing no one.
