Pery Broad, also Perry Broad (25 April 1921 – 28 November 1993) was a Brazilian

non-commissioned officer A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...

in the ''

Schutzstaffel The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...

'' (SS) active at Auschwitz concentration camp from April 1942 to 1945. He reached the rank of ''SS-

Unterscharführer ''Unterscharführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party used by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) between 1934 and 1945. The SS rank was created after the Night of the Long Knives. That event caused an SS reorganisation and the creation ...

'' while working as a translator and stenographer in the camp headquarters. As a prisoner after the war, he wrote a historically valuable account of the camp's operation, dubbed the ''Broad Report''. Broad, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1921, came to Berlin with his mother at the age of five. He studied at the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

and joined the ''

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. The grew from th ...

'' in 1941 as a foreigner. Detached on duty to Auschwitz, he requested a transfer to the ''

Politische Abteilung The ''Politische Abteilung'' ("Political Department"), also called the "concentration camp Gestapo," was one of the five departments of a Nazi concentration camp set up by the Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI) to operate the camps. An outpos ...

'', where he conducted interrogations. According to

Simon Laks Simon (Szymon) Laks (1 November 1901 – 11 December 1983) was a Polish Jewish composer and violinist, who became head of the prisoners' orchestra at Birkenau- Auschwitz. Biography Simon Laks was born in Warsaw on 1 November 1901. He was born a ...

, head of the prisoner's orchestra, Broad was a music lover who attended most of its performances, an exception being while choosing female prisoners for the

camp brothel In World War II, Nazi Germany established brothels in the concentration camps (''Lagerbordell'') to create an incentive for prisoners to collaborate, although these institutions were used mostly by Kapos, "prisoner functionaries" and the criminal ...

. He remained in Auschwitz until the dissolution of the camp in early 1945 and was captured by British armed forces. While a prisoner of war, he voluntarily wrote a report about his experiences in Auschwitz. Released in 1947, he again was arrested 12 years later, freed in December 1960 after the payment of DM 50,000 as surety and again arrested in November 1964 as a defendant in the

Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, known in German as ''der Auschwitz-Prozess'', or ''der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess,'' (the "second Auschwitz trial") was a series of trials running from 20 December 1963 to 19 August 1965, charging 22 defendants und ...

. He was found guilty of supervising selections at

Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. ...

, as well as of participating in interrogations, tortures and executions, and was sentenced to four years in prison in 1965. In 1979 in

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "'' Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...

, Broad was among those interviewed and secretly filmed by

Claude Lanzmann Claude Lanzmann (; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker known for the Holocaust documentary film ''Shoah'' (1985). Early life Lanzmann was born on 27 November 1925 in Paris, France, the son of Paulette () and Armand Lanzmann. ...

for ''

Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

'', his Holocaust documentary released in 1985.

Published English translations of the ''Broad Report''

* ** republished in ** reprinted in the United States by Howard Fertig, *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Broad, Pery 1921 births 1993 deaths Auschwitz concentration camp personnel SS non-commissioned officers German criminals Place of birth missing Place of death missing Gestapo personnel Romani genocide perpetrators Waffen-SS personnel 20th-century translators German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom People convicted in the Nazi concentration camp trials Prisoners and detainees of Germany Brazilian emigrants to Germany