David Olère was a Polish-French artist known primarily for his powerful and haunting artworks depicting the Holocaust. Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1902, Olère survived internment in several concentration camps during World War II, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
After the war, Olère settled in France and began creating art that bore witness to the atrocities he had experienced. His works often depicted scenes from the camps, capturing the brutality and inhumanity of the Holocaust. Olère’s art served as a form of testimony and remembrance, ensuring that the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten.
One of his most well-known works is a series of paintings and drawings depicting the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz, based on his firsthand experiences. These works are particularly striking in their stark portrayal of the grim realities of the Holocaust.
Olère’s art continues to be a significant contribution to Holocaust remembrance, offering a unique perspective from someone who survived the horrors of the camps and felt compelled to document them through his art.
I did post some of his works before, the painting at the top is titled, “The Food of the Dead for the Living,” and below are more.
Admission in Mauthausen by David Olère.
The Experimental Injection by David Olère
The Oven Room by David Olère
Gassing by David Olère.
On 20 February 1943, due to his Jewish origin, he was arrested by the French police and placed in the Drancy Camp. On 2 March, he was deported from Drancy to the German Nazi Auschwitz Camp, where he was registered with number 106144. Throughout his entire stay at the camp, he worked in the Sonderkommando, a special work unit forced by the Germans to aid in the operation of the crematoriums and gas chambers.
“David Olère is the only prisoner of Sonderkommando who transferred his traumatic experiences from the shadow of the crematorium chimneys on paper and canvas.” — Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński
+++This is not a real story, just my creative writing and thoughts. However, I am sure there have been many similar stories throughout Europe at Easter during World War II+++
Amidst the chaos of World War II, Easter came like a ray of hope, offering a brief respite from the horrors of conflict. In a small village nestled in the countryside of France, the war had cast its shadow over every aspect of life. However, on this Easter Sunday, the villagers found solace in their traditions and faith, gathering together—despite the looming uncertainties.
In the heart of the village stood a quaint church, its weathered walls a testament to the passage of time. Inside, the pews were filled with weary faces, yet there was a palpable sense of anticipation as the congregation awaited the Easter service. Among them was young Marie, whose father had been called to serve in the French Resistance, leaving her and her mother to fend for themselves.
As the church bells chimed, signaling the start of the service, the priest stepped forward, his voice filled with warmth and reassurance. He spoke of hope and renewal, the triumph of light over darkness—weaving a tapestry of comfort for those gathered. In the flickering candlelight, Marie felt herself being transported, if only for a moment, to a place where fear and worry held no sway.
Outside the church, the war raged on, but within its walls. A sense of peace transcended the turmoil of the world. After the service, the villagers gathered for a modest feast, sharing whatever provisions they could spare. Despite rationing and scarcity, there was a sense of abundance as they broke bread together, grateful for the simple joys of community and companionship.
As the afternoon sun began to wane Marie wandered through the village square, where children laughed and played, their voices echoing against the backdrop of destruction. In their innocence, they found joy amidst the chaos, their Easter egg hunts were a reminder that even in the darkest of times—there is still room for light.
As evening fell, Marie returned home with her mother, their hearts buoyed by the spirit of Easter. Though uncertainty lingered on the horizon, they found solace in the bonds of family and faith, knowing that as long as they stood together, they could weather any storm.
In the quiet of their home, they lit a candle and offered a prayer for Marie’s father, wherever he may be, and—for all those who fought for freedom and peace. And as they drifted off to sleep, they clung to the hope Easter brought, knowing that even surrounded by war, love would always endure.
Before I go into the main story, I’d like you to look at the photograph above. Drancy Transit Camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews for deportation to extermination camps during the World War II German occupation of France. However, as you can see, there is only one uniformed person in the photo—a French police officer. It is a point I have made many times before, and I will make it again. Without the help of people in the occupied countries, the Nazis would not have been able to carry out the murders on such a large scale/ Many of the non-Germans were happy to participate in the murder and persecution of Jews, Roma, LGBT, disabled, etc.
On March 27, 1944, a transport left Drancy with the end destination Auschwitz Birkenau—the route of that transport.
Before reaching Auschwitz-Birkenau, the train passed eight or so stations. I don’t know if the train stopped at any of them. However, I presume it may have stopped at some of the stations. Rarely mentioned—every time that train stopped, the people inside had thoughts of fear or joy. Fear for the unknown, the uncertainty of what was about to happen. Joy because they may have thought they would get off the train, and perhaps the ordeal may be over. The psychological terror of that journey, and all the other journeys, is often forgotten.
There were two rail companies involved with Transport 70. Unsurprisingly, the German Reich railways, Deutsche Reichbahn. The other is the SNCF. The French National Railway Company, SNCF, Société Nationale des chemins de fer français. SNCF was formed in 1938, following the nationalization of France’s five main railway companies.
The French state-owned trains and state-paid rail workers were responsible for carrying approximately 76,000 Jews from France to Germany and the East during World War II. Only a handful returned.
According to the list prepared in the Drancy Transit Camp before the departure, there were 1,000 Jews on Transport 70. A copy of the list was sent to the Union of French Jews (Union générale des israélites de France [UGIF]), recovered by the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Centre (Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine [CDJC]) after the war, and edited by Serge Klarsfeld in his 1978 work, Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France. However, Klarsfeld’s Le Calendrier de la persécution des Juifs de France records a total of 1,025 deportees (609 men and 416 women). Klarsfeld also notes that the Jews deported on this transport were arrested during roundups in the Paris region—the Isère, the Savoie, the Lyon region, Vichy, Toulouse, Marseille, and Côte d’Azur.
I won’t be able to go into the 1025 stories, but I will use Daniel Tytelman to commemorate all murders.
There is some confusion about Daniel’s age. Yad Vashem has two birth years, 1928 and 1930, but looking at that picture of him, he doesn’t look 14. After research, I found a document that puts his birthdate as April 11, 1928. nearly 40 years before I was born, just off by one day.
Daniel was murdered when he was still 15. There are also two versions of the way he was murdered. He was transported on March 27 from Drancy to Auschwitz. He died, according to one version, shot while trying to escape while the train was slowing down at Bar-le-Duc. According to another, he was gassed upon his arrival on April 1.
Only 15% of all those deported that day survived the Holocaust.
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The above painting is titled Boats on Rough Seas Near a Rocky Coast, painted in the mid-17th century. It was seized in June 1944 from Minna Bargeboer-Kirchheimer. Minna was born on October 7, 1867, in Nieheim, Germany.
In 1893, Minna married Dutch Jewish cattle dealer Abraham Bargeboer from Winschoten, the Netherlands, and probably lived with him in Germany. At an unknown date, they emigrated to France, where they lived in Nice in 1939. They were discovered and arrested by the German Wehrmacht at the end of 1943.
Minna was arrested and taken from Nice to the French Transit Camp in Drancy. On July 31, 1944, they transported her to Auschwitz, where they murdered her on August 5, 1944.
Abraham Bargeboer was born on August 9, 1868, in Winschoten, the Netherlands. The Wehrmacht arrested him and sent him to the Excelsior Hotel in Nice, France, near the station. In September 1943, the Nazis requisitioned the hotel to imprison the Jews arrested. Of course, when you think of a hotel, you think of a place of leisure—the Excelsior Hotel was not.
There were a few accounts of Abraham’s stay in the hotel.
Author Philippe Erlanger described the psychological state of a man who escaped from the Excelsior as follows, “He went half crazy after listening all night to the moans of the tortured prisoners.”
Dr. Drucker, who was sent from Drancy to Nice to serve as a physician at the Hotel Excelsior for three months, said, “Day and night, the largest number of those arrested required medical care. Bandages for gunshot wounds to the thighs, legs, and buttocks, lacerations to the scalp, an ear torn off by the butt of a revolver, multiple hematomas, and bruises all over the body, broken teeth, split lips, facial abrasions, broken ribs, sprained, etc.”
By torturing the arrested Jews, the Nazis sought not only to extract confessions but also to oppress them, destroy their personalities, and humiliate them.
For this reason, some Jews, who could no longer endure the atrocities of the Gestapo, committed suicide. Such was the case of Abraham Bargeboer, who hung himself in his cell on January 23, 1944.
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Seeing images of death and destruction of the Holocaust can often be gut-wrenching. It is true that a photograph tells a thousand words, and it is also true that it doesn’t tell us the full story. A photo is always a snapshot in time.
That is one of the reasons why I do very few posts with horrific Holocaust images. I find the words of those who saw the horror unfolding much more haunting.
Hélène Berr was a young French woman of Jewish ancestry and faith who documented her life in a notebook during the Nazi occupation of France. She is frequently referred to as the French Anne Frank. Like Anne Frank, Helene was also murdered in Bergen-Belsen on 10 April 1945. That was 23 years before I was born.
The following are some of her words:
“…because you shouldn’t forget anything.”
“…I want to stay very elegant and dignified at all times so that people can see what that means. I want to do whatever is most courageous. This evening, I believe that means wearing the star.”
4 June 1942 “Life continues to be strangely shabby and strangely beautiful,”
June 1942 “Here we had tea on the small table, listening to the “Kreutzer” sonata… He sat at the piano without being asked and played some Chopin. Afterward, I played the violin.”
11 August 1942 “I couldn’t really make out Papa’s note because Maman was sobbing so hard that it stopped me concentrating. For the time being I couldn’t cry. But if misfortune does come, I shall be sorrowful enough, sorrowful for all time.”
20 September 1942 “All day long there’s a continuous line of women who have lost their children, men who have lost their wives, children who have lost their parents, people coming to ask for news of children and women, and others offering to take them in. Women weep. Yesterday one of them fainted.”
23 July 1942 “I forget that I have to lead a positive life,”
November 1943 “There aren’t many Jews in Paris anymore.”
December 1943
Helene and her parents were arrested on the morning of 8 March 1943. After incarceration at the Drancy Relocation Camp just East of Paris (for almost three weeks), she and her family were deported to Auschwitz. After eight months at Auschwitz, Hélène was deported to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in the autumn of 1944. In the winter of 1944–45, a raging typhus epidemic spread throughout the camp. This caused Hélène to contract typhus, making her very ill and weak. After the winter passed, she could no longer stand or walk. There was a roll call at the camp, which Hélène failed to attend, given her condition and illness. Because she had not participated in the roll call, she was severely beaten by a Nazi officer, thus making her even weaker. She died on 10 April 1945 from typhus, five days prior to its liberation by the British and American armies.
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It is often said that the Holocaust by bullets, is the forgotten Holocaust, and I agree. However, in my opinion, it is not the only forgotten Holocaust. I believe the actual deportation would fall under that category. We all know what happened after the transports and deportation, but know very little about what happened or how they were experienced.
Elie Wiesel said of his deportation in May 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau:
“Life in the cattle cars was the death of my adolescence. How quickly I aged,”
Simon Grinbaud, who was deported from the Drancy transit camp in France to Auschwitz-Birkenau in September 1942, recalled:
“In such a car, which was designed to transport ‘eighteen horses’ according to the sign on the door, were a hundred of us – adults, children, sick, elderly, in indescribably crowded conditions…In every car there was a bucket with water for everyone and another bucket for toilets; so much of the water reserve was soiled as we boarded the train.”
The Nazis turned something designed and built for the betterment of society, trains, into weapons of mass destruction. These trains were not operated or driven by Nazis—but by ordinary machinists and other rail workers from the occupied countries (all occupied countries). I know there is a push nowadays in some countries to whitewash their involvement in the Holocaust. The facts are simple, the occupied countries had willing participants working with the Nazi regime. Of course, not all railway workers were complicit because some tried to do something about the transport.
I am not sure if there is any data in relation to the deaths that occurred on the trains, but undoubtedly there will have been thousands. It makes sense that the trains were filled with the elderly, pregnant women, babies, sick, and disabled people.
Even for the healthiest on the transports, it must have been extremely hard to be cramped in a small space, with only one bucket as a toilet, and nowhere to sit, the journeys would often take days. From France, Hungary and the Netherlands occasionally seven to eight days. From Thessaloniki in Greece, some deportees were transported around for more than two weeks on boats and trains.
The overcrowding in the cattle cars was unbearable, the feeling of suffocation overwhelming, and a desperate battle ensued to get close to the narrow window. Growing hunger and thirst magnified the anguish. The necessity to relieve themselves inside the railcar was a low point for the humiliated deportees.
Henri Borlant was 15 when he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau by Convoy No. 8 from Angers, France, on 29 July 20 1942. In a later interview, he recalled:
“The journey took three days and three nights, with nothing to eat or drink. Finally, the train came to a halt in the middle of a field. You could hear men shouting and dogs barking. We got out and were told to leave our bags behind and to hurry. We were put in rows of five and made to walk the mile or so to the Birkenau camp, where we soon learned that the barbed-wire fence surrounding it was electrified. We were led to a large hut, where we were ordered to get completely undressed. In front of everyone? Yes. I was very shy. They began hitting us with batons. Others came to shave our heads and faces.
I saw my father, naked and with a shaved head. Next, we were tattooed with a number. That number was our name, our identity. I became 51 055. The French people in the camp, mostly resistance fighters or communists, had a red triangle next to their number. A letter indicating your nationality. The cruellest had green triangles to show they were ex-criminals. They were often leaders of Kommandos or labour units. We were given clothes that had been worn by people who were sick or had probably died wearing them. Our shoes were like wooden clogs. They were very hard to run in. Soon, we all had lacerated feet. We were beaten and shouted at, and given nothing to eat or drink. Trains arrived every day with more deportees.
We were told, ‘This is an extermination camp. You will only get out of here by the crematorium chimney.’ We were terrified. There was nothing we could do.”
Some were able to throw notes out of the trains, words written on scraps of paper they could find. Aron Liwerant wrote these words on a deportation train in France to his daughter, Berthe. Aron was murdered in Majdanek.
“Dear Berthe. It is already day four. I am now in the railroad car. We are surely traveling to Germany. I am also certain we are going to work. We are about 700 people, 23 railroad cars. In each car, there are two gendarmes. This is a commercial railroad car, but it is neat with benches and a heater. Of course, German railroad cars. Of course, without compartments. They put a pail in it. Imagine the impression this makes. Not everyone can use it. You have to be strong in every situation.
I hope, my child, that you receive all my letters. If you can, keep them for a memento. Dear Berthe, I enclose two lottery tickets. I don’t have a newspaper. I believe I will be able to write a letter to Aunt Paula. I hope, my child, that you will know how to behave as a free person, even though you are without your parents for now. Don’t forget that you must survive, and don’t forget to be a Jew and also a human being. Tell this also to Simon. Remain free people and observe everything with open eyes. Don’t be influenced by first impressions. Know that you cannot open up a person to look inside, at his concealed thoughts, if he has a serious face, or even if he laughs and is pleasant. I don’t mean one specific thing only, but everything that lives around you and everything you see. Both false thoughts and honest thoughts are often blurred, and you should watch how a person behaves in your presence. You don’t see the falsehoods or the honesty of a person in one day. You understand that my advice is for your benefit. Always remember these ideas. My dear child, I think this letter will be my last because we are nearing Paris. If I can – I will write again. My dear Bertshi, take care of your health, don’t drink cold drinks when you sweat so I will be able to see my healthy children once again. Tell Simon everything I have written you. Tell him to study and be a good student, because he is gifted. I am finishing my letter. Many kisses. I am going with confidence that you will grow up and be a good, healthy and smart girl.
Your Father, hoping to see you soon”
When I first read that note, it broke my heart in thousand little pieces. If I was born a few decades earlier, it could have easily been me writing a note like that.
In July 1944, the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania was liquidated, and the remaining Jews, including the Perk family, were crammed into a cattle car that had one small opening covered with barbed wire. One of the Jews in the car managed to tear the barbed wire. Kalman Perk jumped from the train, and later wrote about this experience:
“Just 14 years old, in short trousers and a shirt, I jumped from the train into a hostile world. With great anguish, I left my loved ones to their fate… We didn’t cry or kiss each other before I jumped from the car. Father just looked at me and said: “Kalman, be a ‘mensch’ (a person of integrity and honor.).” These last words were my father’s will and testament.”
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I have mixed feelings about the story of Marcel Pinte. I didn’t think that any child, especially a child as young as six, should ever be used in a war situation. However, I have also never lived in a wartime situation.
Marcel was born on 12 April 1938 in Valenciennes, France. He was the youngest of five children. His father, Eugene Pinte, was a local resistance leader who used his farmhouse in Aixe-sur-Vienne to receive coded messages from London and coordinate parachute drops in a field nearby.
Young Marcel acted as a courier for local resistance fighters. He was given the nickname “Quinquin” after a children’s song.
Marcel surprised people with his “astonishing” memory and was trusted to deliver messages to Resistance chiefs, which he hid under his shirt. “He understood everything at once,” Marc Pinte, grandson of Marcel’s father Eugène, told the AFP news agency.
He said Marcel was happy to spend time in the woods with Resistance fighters, known as maquisards, learning about their clandestine methods.
Eugène, his wife Paule and their five children hosted clandestine farmhouse meetings with Resistance fighters and even hid a British paratrooper in the loft, so it was a hive of activity at night.
Another relative, Alexandre Brémaud, spent years researching Marcel’s story because the official records focused on the Resistance fighters and sabotage operations, rather than on the many helpers – often women and children – who also took risks to defeat the Nazi occupation.
Mr Brémaud told the BBC: “My grandmother described him as an extremely happy, intelligent and brilliant brother, sparkling with mischief”.
Also, he made for a very able messenger. The Nazis didn’t question Marcel, who, because of his young age, avoided serious scrutiny. “With his school satchel on his back he didn’t raise suspicions,” said his relative. However, Marcel’s youth could be a concern too.
“There was a bit of carefree attitude because of his age,” the French newspaper Le Figaro quoted a relative as saying. (and why wouldn’t there be he was only 6)“A resident told his father to be careful because Marcel sometimes sang songs learned from fighters.”
On the night of 19 August 1944 Marcel went with a group of maquisards, resistance fighters, to a parachute drop of munitions and other supplies. They had received a coded message via the BBC: “The forget-me-not is my favourite flower.” They waiting to meet other guerillas arriving by parachute ahead of a battle. But when they landed, a Sten submachine gun accidentally went off. To the horror of everyone there, the spray of bullets struck and killed six-year-old Marcel Pinte.
Marcel was buried by local resistance fighters on 21 August shortly before the liberation of Limoges, in which his father participated. According to Marc Pinte, the next supply drop, a few days after Marcel’s death, used black parachutes: “The British knew that the little Marcel played a real role. This parachute was the calling card sent to the family.
In 1950, Marcel was posthumously awarded the rank of sergeant of the resistance. In 2013, he posthumously received an official card for “volunteer combatants of the resistance” from the National Office of Former Combatants and War Victims.
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During World War II, many medical advances were made. Surgery techniques such as removing dead tissue resulted in fewer amputations than at any time. The treatment of bacterial infections with penicillin or streptomycin was administered for the first time in large-scale combat. In the beginning, plasma was available as a substitute for blood. By 1945, serum albumin had been developed, which is whole blood, rich in the red blood cells that carry oxygen and is considerably more effective than plasma alone.
The photographs above and below: Wounded American soldiers receiving blood plasma alongside a road in Normandy while awaiting transport to hospitals behind the lines. Major General H.W. Kenner, Chief Medical Officer at Allied Supreme Headquarters, disclosed on 5 August 1944 that 97 out of every 100 Allied soldiers wounded in France survived because of the speedy handling of injuries.
Allied casualties in Normandy were 30 per cent less than expected. Blood transfusions are credited with saving thousands of lives, with blood plasma being carried in each soldier’s kit and whole blood being administered at field hospitals. U.S. service men and women stationed in Great Britain set up a blood donors’ centre at a U.S. Army hospital to donate blood to the wounded in France. With a speedy process of handling—blood flowed into the veins of an injured soldier in France within a few hours after it was taken from the arm of a buddy in England.
If there was a chart of The Top 10 Most Evil Nazis, I reckon Klaus Barbie would be on that list.
Known as “The Butcher of Lyon,” for his reign of terror in Nazi-occupied Lyon, France, Barbie not only sent Jews to concentration camps but also brutally tortured French Jews and Resistance fighters. His torture rooms had tables with restraints, ovens, and implements for electrocution. He personally was involved in the tortures using not only his fists but also whips and truncheons.
Victims were bitten by dogs and often had their arms and legs broken. This brutality earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Lyon.” He would also skin prisoners alive.
In a long list of unspeakable acts, Barbie’s operation in April 1944 against a group of children stands out. In the remote locale of Izieu, France, Barbie, never known for moral scruples or mercy, crossed a final threshold of criminality.
On the morning of 6 April 1944, members of the Lyon Gestapo had been tipped off by an informant that carried out a raid on the children’s home in Izieu and arrested everyone there. The group was enjoying breakfast when the Gestapo arrived. 44 children aged 4-17 and seven staff members were incarcerated in the prison in Lyon and deported to Drancy the following day. The deportation order was issued by Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo in Lyon. Barbie reported the arrest of the children and adults at the children’s home in a telegram that he sent to Paris. He gleefully reported to his superiors that he had uncovered “a children’s colony.” During the children’s detention in Lyon, the Germans discovered the whereabouts of some of their family members and were then taken to Drancy and later deported to their deaths in Auschwitz.
During the raid on Izieu, Leon Reifman, a medical student that cared for the sick children, managed to escape and hide at a nearby farm. His sister, Dr Sarah Lavan-Reifman, the children’s home doctor, his parents, Eva and Moisz-Moshe and his nephew, Claude Lavan-Reifman, lived at the home. They were all murdered at Auschwitz. Miron Zlatin, Sabine Zlatin’s husband, who ran the children’s home with her, was deported on 15 May, with two of the older boys, to Estonia, where they were shot to death.
By the end of June 1944, all the children and adults caught in Izieu had been deported from Drancy. Most were sent to Auschwitz, including all the children and five adults (among them Sarah Lavan-Reifman, who refused to be parted from her son Claude) and were sent to the gas chambers.
Despite all of Barbie’s crimes and evilness—it wasn’t enough of a reason for the US government to put him on trial.
In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent for the 66th Detachment of the US Army Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) alongside a Serbian agent of the Belgrade special police and SD, Radislav Grujičić. The US used Barbie and other Nazi Party members to further anti-communist efforts in Europe. Specifically, they were interested in British interrogation techniques (which Barbie had experienced firsthand), and the identities of former SS officers that British intelligence agencies might be interested in recruiting. Later, the CIC housed him in a hotel in Memmingen; he reported on French intelligence activities in the French zone of occupied Germany because they suspected the French had been infiltrated by the KGB and GPU.
The US Department of Justice reported to the US Senate in 1983 opens with the summary paragraph: “As the investigation of Klaus Barbie has shown, officers of the United States government were directly responsible for protecting a person wanted by the government of France on criminal charges and in arranging his escape from the law. As a direct result of that action, Klaus Barbie did not stand trial in France in 1950; he spent 33 years as a free man and a fugitive from justice.”
Allegedly, Barbie helped to establish new concentration camps for opponents of the Bolivian military, where he resurrected his old torture techniques.
Barbie was extradited from Bolivia, where he had been using the alias Klaus Altmann Nansen, to France in 1983. He was sentenced to life in prison for crimes against humanity. In September 1991, at the old age of 77, “The Butcher of Lyon” died of cancer.
Klaus Barbie was pure evil—evil for the sake of being evil.
History of Sorts 
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