Vera Reitzer
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Vera Reitzer (born Schon; 1921–2006) was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, who later moved to South Africa and supported the apartheid regime.[1] In 1950, she joined the governing National Party, which was implementing the first apartheid laws during the tenure of D.F. Malan.[2]
Reitzer was born in Hungary and was sent to Auschwitz in 1944, with her mother (a niece of Sigmund Freud)[3] and sister. After eight months they were sent to a factory in Germany, between Leipzig and Dresden, where they had to fill shells with gunpowder.[4]
On 26 April 1945, they were rescued by American soldiers. Vera, fluent in five languages, acted as a translator between the Germans and Americans. In 1948 she moved to Israel, where she married Mirko Reitzer.[5] They moved to South Africa in 1952. Her mother lived with her in Johannesburg until she died in 1995. Her sister Rosi died in Brazil in 2003. She was survived by two sons and six grandchildren.[5][6]
References
[edit]- ^ McGreal, Chris (7 February 2006). "Brothers in arms - Israel's secret pact with Pretoria | World news". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
- ^ "weblog1". Florin.ms. 21 July 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2013.
- ^ "Don't Dilute Apartheid: Israel Is Not South Africa". thereporterethiopia.com. 27 April 2024.
- ^ Engelbrecht, Leon (28 January 2005). "SA Jewish community remembers the Holocaust". Mail & Guardian.
- ^ a b Vince, Avi (17 July 2015). "'How did this elderly Nazi live free, when my grandmother could not?'". Mamamia.
- ^ http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/SOUTH-AFRICA/2006-05/1148833926