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Holocaust Hero Noah Klieger

(Jerusalem Report) Francoise Ouzan - Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1926, Noah (Norbert) Klieger joined a resistance group against the Nazis when he was 15. The Zionist group was very active in forwarding secret messages and ration cards and helped more than 200 young Jews to cross into Switzerland. Captured, he was sent to Auschwitz in 1943. When a commander of the death camp, who was a boxing fanatic, put together a boxing club with the inmates as players, Klieger volunteered, saving his life. "When I joined the boxing club, I got an extra liter of soup that kept me going for a few months." He was liberated on April 29, 1945, by the Soviet Army. After the war he joined the underground Brichah (Flight) network composed of survivors, whose task was to help Jewish displaced persons (DPs) immigrate illegally to the Promised Land. In July 1947, Klieger served as first mate aboard the famous Exodus 1947. Once in Israel, he joined a volunteer unit of French-speaking soldiers in the Palmach and sustained a serious leg injury in the War of Independence. He became a sports columnist and joined Yediot Ahronot, later covering Nazi war criminal trials as well. In his later years he gave lectures to teach people what happened in the Holocaust. Klieger died in Tel Aviv on Dec. 13, 2018, at the age of 92. Dr. Francoise S. Ouzan is Senior Research Associate at the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center at Tel Aviv University.
2019-01-04 00:00:00
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