Alexander Donat, also Aleksander Donat in Polish (1905 – 16 June 1983), was a Holocaust survivor imprisoned at the Lodz Ghetto and several Nazi concentration camps during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Donat, a chemist by training and journalist by profession, emigrated with his family to the United States, settling in New York City. As an eye witness to

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

, he went on to write about his wartime experiences, collect documents, and publish the narratives of others.Eric J. Greenberg (May 5, 2000)
Selective Memory?
The Jewish Week.

Biography

Alexander Donat was born Michał Berg in the Polish capital Warsaw, where he lived until World War II. He was a publisher of a daily newspaper there, had married, and became a father in 1937 to a son William. Following the Nazi German invasion of Poland Berg (Donat) and his family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. From there, he was deported to several slave labor and concentration camps including

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

. Michał Berg have met a prisoner whose real name was Alexander Donat at Vaihingen concentration camp. They secretly agreed to switch their names for a prisoner transport. Soon thereafter the real Alexander Donat was murdered. Berg decided to keep Donat's name as his own forever. Donat feared that, "should the Nazis be victorious, 'future generations will pay trubute to them'" similar to Homeric Greek crusaders. He was liberated from

Dachau , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

by American troops and returned to Warsaw, where he found his wife and their son, whom the Polish rescuers had placed in a Catholic orphanage. The Donats went to the United States and opened a printing business.Laura Jockusch
''Collect and Record!: Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe''
Oxford University Press (Google Books preview). Retrieved The New York Times (June 19, 1983)

/ref> In 1977, Donat helped start "The Holocaust Library", a non-profit program to launch books that condemn persecution and tell of the personal experiences of the Jews during the Second World War. He died of a lung disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. His son William Donat was a noted publisher, President of Waldon Press, and a graphic artist. He died on November 5, 2009.The New York Times (November 5, 2009)
Obituary: William H. Donat
(son of Alexander). Death notice reprinted by Legacy.com (September 6, 2013).

Publications

*''Jewish Resistance'' (1964) *''Holocaust Kingdom'' (1965) *''The Death Camp Treblinka: a documentary'' (1979)

Notes

References

Barbara Engelking Barbara Engelking (born 22 April 1962) is a Polish sociologist specializing in Holocaust studies. The founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, she is the author or editor of several works on the Holocaust in P ...

Jacek Leociak Jacek Leociak (born 2 June 1957, in Warsaw) is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Cente ...

''The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City''.
Yale University Press (Google Books preview). Retrieved *

Joshua D. Zimmerman Joshua D. Zimmerman (born 1966) holds the Eli and Diana Zborowski Professorial Chair in Holocaust Studies and East European Jewish History at Yeshiva University. He is the author or editor of several works about the Holocaust, including ''Contes ...

''Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath''
Rutgers University Press. Retrieved *

Henryk Grynberg Henryk Grynberg (born 1936 in Warsaw) is a Polish writer and actor who survived the Nazi occupation. He is a novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright and essayist who had authored more than thirty books of prose and poetry and two dramas. G ...

"My, Żydzi z Dobrego"
Kanadyjska Fundacja Dziedzictwa Polsko-Żydowskiego, Montreal. Retrieved {{DEFAULTSORT:Donat, Alexander 1905 births 1983 deaths Jewish American journalists Majdanek concentration camp survivors Warsaw Ghetto inmates Polish emigrants to the United States Vaihingen an der Enz concentration camp survivors 20th-century American Jews