David Faber (author)

David Faber in May 2006

David Faber (August 25, 1928 – July 28, 2015) was a Polish Jew who survived nine concentration camps in occupied Poland and Nazi Germany. He was also an award-winning educator and lecturer on the Holocaust.^[1][2][3]

Life

He witnessed the murders of friends and family, the people they were staying with, and some of his extended family, at a dinner table by the Gestapo. He was sent to nine concentration camps in Germany and occupied Poland. Amazingly, he survived. At age 14, he was a fighter with Soviet partisans. Faber recalls seeing many horrible actions in the concentration camps, ranging from seeing a baby thrown into an oven to losing every friend he made in camp. Faber also recalls the horrors of seeing most of his family dead.

He remembers how an Italian friend named Finci ran into his father's arms and his father was shot right then (in front of him). When he was liberated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945, he was 18 years old and weighed 72 pounds. Faber says "I was a living skeleton". He said he could not resist anymore, and as soon as he was liberated he gave up on living. He was found at the side of a road and taken to a hospital.^[4]

After the war, Faber moved to England to live with his sister Rachel (the only other survivor of his immediate family) and worked as a pastry chef in London, including at the House of Commons. During that period, he married his first wife, Tonia, and had a son, Solomon. In the 1950s, he moved to the United States, working as a pastry chef in Springfield, Massachusetts, and being called to offer testimony against Nazi war criminals. He and his wife later moved to San Diego, California. After Tonia Faber's death, Faber remained in San Diego with his second wife, Lina.^[5]

Faber wrote his memoir, Because of Romek, in 1997, in memory of his older brother, who was murdered by Gestapo interrogators. Faber's book is required reading in some schools.

Faber died in San Diego on July 28, 2015, at the age of 86; he was survived by his wife Lina, his son Solomon, and two stepdaughters. He is buried in King David Lawn at Greenwood Memorial Park in San Diego.^[6]

Works

• David Faber, James D. Kitchen (1997). Because of Romek: a Holocaust survivor's memoir. Granite Hills Press. ISBN 978-0-9638886-2-4.

References

1. Jennifer Toomer-Cook (14 September 2005). "Holocaust survivor recounts Nazi-perpetrated horrors". Deseret News. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
2. "Holocaust survivor David Faber shares experiences". Elon.edu. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
3. "Part III - Faces and Voices of Holocaust Survivors". Isurvived.org. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
4. "I met David Faber, Holocaust survivor, today at a book signing.". Democratic Underground. Retrieved 2010-10-15.
6. http://amisraelmortuary.com/book-of-memories/2202255/Faber-David/service-details.php

External links

• David Faber at Find a Grave