On 27 January 1945, the Russians entered the gates of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp complex and liberated the remaining prisoners. Let me show you what led up to the day before—26 January 1945.
On 20 January, shortly after the evacuation, the remaining SS functionaries blew up crematoria and gas chambers II and III. The next day, no longer able to ship out all the stolen goods, they set fire to the ‘Kanada’ warehouses in Birkenau. The fire lasted a few days and destroyed virtually all the belongings. On 26 January 1945, the SS finally blew up the Crematorium V building. This was not the only thing they did on 26 January.
In 1934, a Quaker school was founded in Eerde (municipality of Ommen), and young German refugees attended that school. There, they trained for a farming life in Israel. The Quakers wanted to provide education and safe shelter in the Netherlands to young people who had to flee fascism from their own country.
Ernst Rudolf Israel Reiss was born in Hamburg on 12 August 1927. Rudolf grew up in a Jewish family that had converted to the Protestant faith. Despite that, the Nazis made their lives miserable. Ernst Rudolf was sent to the Netherlands for safety in September 1938.
Ernst Rudolf Reiss was only 11 years old when he arrived at the Eerde estate near Ommen. At the Quaker school, he trained to be a future farmer in Israel. While at Eerde, he became friends with Klaus Seckel. They slept in the same room. Klaus wrote in his diary that he and Rudolf were better suited to each other than he thought—previously. Rudolf, like Klaus, loved reading.
On 9 April 1943, Rudolf and other students from Eerde were forced to go to Camp Vught. From Vught, they transported him to Westerbork on 20 May 1943. There, he stayed in Barrack 37.
Protestant Jews were temporarily exempt from transport. However, on 4 September 1944, they were placed on one of the last transports. Ernst Rudolf was sent to Theresienstadt and then transferred to Auschwitz on 28 October 1944. He was shot to death at Auschwitz during the evacuation of the camp on 26 January 1945 at the age of 17.
Sources
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/29282/ernst-rudolf-reiss
https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Ernst-Rudolf-Reiss/27/105051
https://www.4en5mei.nl/oorlogsmonumenten/zoeken/3203/eerde-joods-monument
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History of Sorts 
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