Karl Höllenreiner (born 9 March 1914 in Fürth; died 1 September 1984) was a survivor of the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma. He testified as a witness and victim of the seawater experiments at the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial.
Life
Höllenreiner, a citizen living in Munich in the 1930s and of Sinti origin, was arrested on 29 May 1944 and deported to the Auschwitz Gypsy camp.The Nuremberg Doctors' Trial 1946/47. Supplementary volume to the microfiche edition. Walter de Gruyter, 2000. pp. 105 & 292 The camp was operational until August 1944. Höllenreiner was tattooed and registered there with the prisoner number Z 10062.
From there he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. In mid-July 1944, he was transferred to Dachau concentration camp, where he became an involuntary subject in Wilhelm Beiglböck's seawater experiments. Subsequently, he was deployed as a forced laborer in a subcamp of the Messerschmitt GmbH factory.
Höllenreiner lost his child, and his sister Rosa and her two children, at Dachau. Others of Karl's family suffered under the Nazis, including Herman Mano Höllenreiner, and Hugo Höllenreiner.
After the war, Karl worked as a textile and musical instrument dealer. During his testimony at the Doctors' Trial on June 17, 1947, he was told by lawyers under cross-examination "not to be evasive in the way Gypsies usually are," and ultimately slapped the defendant in the trial; he was sentenced to 90 days in prison for this and released on probation shortly afterward.
Höllenreiner gave the following account at trial:
See also Romani people Nazi human experimentation
References