Medicine Hat News

Holocaust survivor killed by car while crossing street

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PORTLAND, Ore. A 92-year-old man who survived Nazi concentrat­ion camps during the Holocaust was struck and killed by a car while crossing a street near his home in Oregon.

Alter Wiener died Tuesday in Hillsboro and was pronounced dead at a hospital, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported .

Wiener endured three years in concentrat­ion camps and later in life wrote an autobiogra­phy titled, “From a Name to a Number: A Holocaust Survivor’s Autobiogra­phy.”

He spoke to thousands of Oregonians about his experience­s, making nearly 1,000 appearance­s at schools, libraries, churches, conference­s and charitable events.

Wiener appeared before Oregon lawmakers in September to press for mandatory statewide curriculum standards that would require teachers to educate students about the Holocaust and genocide.

“There can be no better tribute to Alter Wiener and all survivors of the Holocaust but for this mandate to come to fruition in the next legislativ­e session,” the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education said in a statement.

“May the memory of Alter Wiener be a blessing for his family and for those of us who were privileged to know him.”

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, remembered Wiener as “a true Oregonian and total mensch who transforme­d his Holocaust survival into a lesson that taught all of us about the need to fight prejudice always and everywhere.”

Wiener was born in 1926 in Chrzanow, Poland, a small town near the German border. Germans invaded his hometown in 1939, and Wiener, his stepmother and his brothers fled, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

His father was required to stay behind to supply groceries from his business to Polish troops. When the family returned three months later, they learned the Germans had murdered him. Wiener was 13.

Wiener was soon forbidden from attending school and two years later, he was sent to a concentrat­ion camp. For three years, he moved from camp to camp, until the Russians freed him from Gross Masselwitz in May 1945.

He returned to his Polish hometown and found 123 of his relatives had perished. Only five cousins were still alive, the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education said.

Wiener moved to Palestine and eventually to New York to live close to his surviving cousins.

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