'Hitler Youth Salomon' Holocaust survivor Sally Perel dies

Holocaust survivor Sally Perel, who was known as the "Hitler Youth Salomon," died at his home in Israel at the age of 97, his family said on Thursday.

Perel, the subject of the award-winning 1990 film "Europa Europa" by the director Agnieszka Holland, became internationally known for his efforts to promote German-Israeli understanding.

Who was Sally Perel?

Perel was born near the German city of Braunschweig, in the state of Lower Saxony, in 1925 and was said to have initially had a happy childhood.

However, when he was 10, antisemitic persecution forced the family to flee to neighboring Poland. However, the Nazis forced them into a Jewish ghetto after the invasion of that country.

Perel's parents were able to send him and his elder brother to the Soviet Union, where they lost one another, and Salamon ended up in an orphanage.

He fell into the hands of German forces after the Nazis pushed further east and only survived by hiding his papers and assuming the identity of an ethnic German named Josef "Jupp" Perjell.

Having already learned Polish and Russian, Perel spent some time as an interpreter with the soldiers.

As a circumcized Jew, he was constantly in fear of being discovered by his military unit and tried several times to flee to the Soviet side.

However, he was eventually sent to a Hitler Youth boarding school in Braunschweig — close to his old hometown of Peine — where he had an apprenticeship as a toolmaker and still lived in fear of discovery.

Toward the end of the war, Perel was assigned to guard a bridge but was captured by US forces without having seen combat and, as a junior conscript, was soon released.

He was later reunited with his brother but found out that his mother, father, and sister had died at the hands of the Nazis.

Tales of a past life

It was after the war, and after Perel had emigrated to Israel, that he became known for his autobiography "I was Hitler Youth Salomon," which was later adapted into the film "Europa, Europa."

Perel often toured Europe and gave talks about his wartime experiences.

However, it was not until 1985, at the invitation of the mayor of Peine, that he returned to Germany to participate in a commemoration of the destruction of the Peine Synagogue.

Lower Saxony's state premier, Stephan Weil, was among those who paid tribute to Perel for sharing the details of his past with subsequent generations: "Sally Perel had incredible inner strength. It must have been very difficult for him to pretend to be a Nazi in order to survive as a Jew."

"We are all immensely grateful that he reported and wrote about this time and that he always sought contact with children and young people."

rc/sms (dpa, KNA, epd)