According to the ‘US News & World Report’ another so-called ‘Holocaust Survivor’ has died in Rome, Italy.
To wit:
‘As a 15-year-old, he escaped the roundup by German occupying troops of Rome's Jews in 1943 and went into hiding with his family. But a few months later, as his family marked Passover in April 1944, he was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camps with his family, where his parents, three siblings and other relatives perished.
Terracina's recounting of the horrors of the Holocaust to young people won praise from Italian leaders. In addition to speaking at forums, he accompanied Italian students to the Auschwitz memorial in Poland to educate them about the Holocaust.
President Sergio Mattarella hailed Terracina as a “tireless witness to the memory of the Holocaust.”
Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, hailed Terracina as a "true light in these dark times," which she described as being marked by words of hate and denial of the Holocaust.
Among others paying tribute to his efforts was Gov. Nicola Zingaretti of the Lazio region including Rome and the head of Italy's Democratic Party. His testimony, Zingaretti said, "became the mission of life.''
On Jan. 19, 1945, Terracina was forced to march, along with other remaining prisoners at the Birkenau camp, by Nazi officers. But during the march, the German troops fled to escape approaching Russian soldiers.
Terracina recalled how he and other freezing companions then sought refuge in the abandoned Auschwitz death camp.
“The cold was terrible and the miserable blanket that we had froze at our mouth, becoming a block of ice,'' La Repubblica quoted him as saying.
On Jan. 27, 1945, he and other survivors were freed by Soviet troops.’ (1)
Now the problem with Terracina's account is buried in the detail at the end of his narrative. He claims that:
‘On Jan. 19, 1945, Terracina was forced to march, along with other remaining prisoners at the Birkenau camp, by Nazi officers. But during the march, the German troops fled to escape approaching Russian soldiers.’
But yet:
‘Terracina recalled how he and other freezing companions then sought refuge in the abandoned Auschwitz death camp.
“The cold was terrible and the miserable blanket that we had froze at our mouth, becoming a block of ice,'' La Repubblica quoted him as saying.
On Jan. 27, 1945, he and other survivors were freed by Soviet troops.’
In other words: Terracina was part of a death march from Auschwitz that began on 19th January 1945, but the guards ‘ran away’ when they saw ‘approaching Russian soldiers’. Yet Terracina and the other jews didn’t go towards the ‘approaching Russian soldiers’ but rather ‘back to Auschwitz’ – odd if it was indeed a ‘death camp’ – and waited to be ‘liberated’ by the Red Army for over a week.
So, the question becomes: why wouldn’t Terracina and the jews make contact with the ‘approaching Russian soldiers’?
As well as: why did they go back to live in a so-called ‘death camp’ where an alleged 1.1 million jews were killed?
In addition to: why did it take a week for the Red Army to ‘liberate’ them if they were approached by a Red Army unit near Auschwitz 8 days earlier?
Terracina’s narrative doesn’t make much sense now: does it?
References
(1) https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2019-12-08/piero-terracina-rome-jew-who-survived-nazi-death-camp-dies