Peter posing with his identity card

Holocaust survivor Peter Witting calls Canberra home after his escape from hell

Peter Witting still keeps an identity card from Germany’s Third Reich era with a big J printed on the front and a photo of him as a young boy inside.

The 89-year-old Yarralumla resident, who is passionate about genealogy and table tennis, has a sharp recollection of a remarkable life and his family’s escape from the Holocaust.

He was born in 1928 in Gleiwich, a town – then in Germany – with a colourful history. Gleiwich, now Gliwice, Poland was where the Nazis enacted a covert attack on a radio tower which led to the Second World War. The area also served as a location for one of the many sub-camps of Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and 1945.

Thankfully, Mr Witting said, his parents had the foresight to get out.

 

Read the full article by Kimberly Le Lievre at The Age.