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On
Wednesday the 9th of February Sigmund Toman, a Jew from
Vevey, and former prisoner of the Auschwitz death camp came to talk
about his 1250 days spent in this infamous camp. His aim was to
educate us as to the devastating reality of the holocaust. Sigmund Toman spent almost the whole war in prisoner of war camps; being at first interned at Theresienstadt, thereupon sent to Aushwitz-Birkenau, later transferred to Blechhammer, then to Langenbielau and was finally liberated in Dachau on the 27th of January 1945. His account was profoundly moving, touching and poignant. He described the horror of the camps asking us not to pity him on his fate and explained that it was simply luck that saved him from death. It was with luck that he escaped a lot of the casual brutality of the guards: shooting or beating. The only time he was beaten, luck spared him eight blows. Another time, this luck allowed him to fall sick: when he caught Typhoid he was put in the safety of the infirmary and was there until the liberation of the camp. Now
Sigmund Toman lives in Vevey. He still has a striped pair of trousers
from Dachau, a tattoo on his forearm marked 168697 which replaced
his identity in Aushwitz and he still has the memories of his 1250 days
of detention. Listening
to his account, the strongest feeling that was felt was shock and
disgust at the cruelty of the human race. Unfortunately even after the
Holocaust, Nazis and anti-Semitism still exists. Now, like Sigmund
Toman, we must try to inform people of the terrible reality of the
Holocaust to prevent something like that happening again.
Océane Herpin |
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Guest speaker, Mr. Sigmund Toman, who escaped death in a Second World War Concentration Camp.
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Mlle Aminot and Mr. Chapuis of the French Department pictured with guest speaker Mr Sigmund Toman
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Students at the lecture
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Mr. Toman telling students of his time in the concentration camps during WW II
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Mr. Toman shows Isabel & Alejandra his Prisoner of War ID number
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