Sam Pivnik

Szmuel "Sam" Pivnik (1 September 1926 – 30 August 2017) was a Polish Holocaust survivor, author and memoirist. He was the second son of Lajb Pivnik, a tailor, and Feigel Pivnik. He was born in Będzin, Poland.

Pivnik was registered in Auschwitz and tattooed with prisoner number 135913.Archiwum PMAB – Auschwitz Museum Archives L.dz. I-Arch-i-/4800-03/08 On 27 December 1943, Pivnik was admitted to the prisoner infirmary in the Quarantine area KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau, B IIa, Block 9, with suspected typhus. On 19 January 1945 the camp at Fürstengrube was evacuated in the face of the advancing Red Army and prisoners who were fit enough to move were, initially, marched to a railhead at Gleiwitz. 

Pivnik spent the next three months on construction work before he – together with approximately 200 other former Fürstengrube prisoners – were evacuated by barge along the River Elbe to Holstein in northern Germany.

Pivnik was liberated by the British Army in Neustadt on 4 May 1945. His memoir Survivor – Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom was published on 30 August 2012.Survivor: Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom , sampivnik.org; accessed 2 September 2017. 

Pivnik died in London on 30 August 2017, two days before his 91st birthday of pneumonia-related complications.

References

Category:1926 births
Category:2017 deaths
Category:Deaths from pneumonia
Category:Disease-related deaths in London
Category:Polish writers
Category:Holocaust survivors
Category:Memoirists