Albrecht Weinberg

Born 1925 in Westrhauderfehn/East Frisia, Germany

Albrecht Weinberg and his two siblings were born into a Jewish family in East Frisia. As a young boy, he experienced the increasingly radical antisemitism of Nazi Germany. The family hoped in vain that they would be able to emigrate.

Albrecht Weinberg was just a boy when he was put to work as a forced labourer in 1939. In April 1943, he was deported to the Auschwitz camp complex with his brother Dieter and sister Friedel. They had been separated from their parents, who were killed by the SS there. Albrecht Weinberg was held in the Auschwitz III (Monowitz) camp. In January 1945, he was sent on a death march to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, where he was forced to work in armaments production underground. Shortly before the end of the war he was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was liberated on 15 April 1945 and later reunited with his two siblings.

Since their parents had been murdered and they lost their brother Dieter in a fatal accident, there was nothing keeping Albrecht and Friedel Weinberg in defeated Germany. They therefore decided to emigrate to the USA. In the 1950s, Albrecht Weinberg opened a butcher shop in New York.

In 2011, the siblings returned to East Frisia. Albrecht Weinberg works tirelessly to promote engagement with Germany’s National Socialist past. The secondary school in Rhauderfehn was named after him in 2020.

Find out more

Anke Chudzinski-Schubert: ‘Our school should be named after Albrecht Weinberg’, 07.07.2020, [German]