Mietek Grocher (1926–2017), was a Swedish author and public speaker who survived

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

in Poland. Grocher recounted the events in his 1996

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

''Jag överlevde'' (English translation: ''I survived''). Grocher was born in 1926 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. As a teenager during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he resided with his family in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

. Grocher claims to have survived nine different

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

during World War II including

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

and Majdanek. He also wrote that he survived the Majdanek

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History Donatie ...

s. When he realized he was led to gassing by the guards, he began walking backwards. The ''SS'' man guarding the door to the gas chambers was in conversation with another guard and so Grocher escaped unnoticed, to join his father. He was the only member of his family to survive the

Final Solution The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...

. Since the end of the war Grocher lived in

Västerås Västerås () is a city in central Sweden on the shore of Mälaren, Lake Mälaren in the province of Västmanland, west of Stockholm. The city had a population of 127,799 at the end of 2019, out of the municipal total of 158,653, over 100,000 mo ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and traveled around Swedish schools giving speeches about the events of the Holocaust. He died in December 2017.

Controversy

In late October 2010 Grocher, Artur Szulc, a Polish-born military historian from Sweden has noted, that aside from perpetuating long-debunked myths about the German attack on Poland, a large part of ''I survived'' has been copied verbatim from the book of fiction written in 1961 by Leon Uris and titled ''

Mila 18 ''Mila 18'' is a historical novel by Leon Uris set in German-occupied Warsaw, Poland, before and during World War II. ''Mila 18'' debuted at #7 on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list and peaked at #2 in August 1961. Leon Uris's work, bas ...

'', including the mention of apparently fictional Nazi officers serving in the

General Government The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...

during World War II. Several names of German officials in Grocher's book are unknown to history. Szulc contacted Grocher's publishers, but released his own findings in January 2011 when the questions he posed to them were not answered to his satisfaction. Grocher died in December 2017.

References

* Grocher, Mietek
''Jag överlevde''
Johanneshov: Inova 2001, {{DEFAULTSORT:Grocher, Mietek 1926 births 2017 deaths Swedish Jews Swedish-language writers Warsaw Ghetto inmates Buchenwald concentration camp survivors Majdanek concentration camp survivors Swedish people of Polish-Jewish descent Polish emigrants to Sweden