Concentration camp survivor brings German parliament to its feet

AUSCHWITZ survivor Arno Lustiger brought the German parliament to its feet yesterday with a vivid speech describing his trip through “hell” in the waning weeks of World War II and his emotional rescue by US troops.

Speaking in front of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, government ministers and members of the Bundestag, Mr Lustiger told of a spontaneous uprising of Auschwitz prisoners in October 1944 in response to mass gassings of Jews.

“The prisoners attacked the SS with axes and rocks and set one crematorium on fire,” said Mr Lustiger, a Jew and Holocaust historian. “The SS mobilised, rounded everyone up in groups and killed them all with shots to the neck.”