Holocaust Survivor Gena Turgel, Consoler of Anne Frank, Dies

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In this Jan. 27, 2004, file photo, Holocaust survivor Gena Turgel poses for a photo, in London. Turgel, a Holocaust survivor who comforted diarist Anne Frank at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp months before its liberation, has died. She was 95. Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said Turgel died Thursday, June 7, 2018. Turgel had been in two other camps before she met Anne Frank in a hospital at Bergen-Belsen where the teenager was dying from typhus. After World War II, Turgel married one of the camp’s British liberators, Norman Turgel, earning the nickname “The Bride of Belsen.”

Gena Turgel, a Holocaust survivor who comforted Anne Frank at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp before the young diarist’s death and the camp’s liberation a month later, has died. She was 95, NBC News reported.

Turgel died Thursday, Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said on Twitter. The news triggered tributes from some of the people the Polish native touched in the decades she shared her World War II experiences, including witnessing the horrors of the Nazi camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen.

After World War II, Turgel married one of Bergen-Belsen’s British liberators, Norman Turgel, earning the nickname “The Bride of Belsen.” Her wedding dress, made from parachute silk, is part of the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.

Turgel attended Britain’s annual Holocaust remembrance event two months ago, sitting in a wheelchair with a blanket draped over her knees, and said, “My story is the story of one survivor, but it is also the story of 6 million who perished. Maybe that’s why I was spared — so my testimony would serve as a memorial like that candle that I light, for the men, women and children who have no voice.”

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images





Source : Nbcnewyork