Opasek Waltera Fantla – svědectví muže, který přežil Terezín i peklo Osvětimi – Zeillinger Gerhard (2010)

When we were taken to the reception after showering, I had only my shoes and belt. The shoes were gone the next morning. From my previous life, I was left with only the belt. I held onto it like a talisman. I don't know why, but I told myself that as long as I had that belt, I would stay alive and get out of that hell. The belt would help me get through it.

Walter Fantl was fourteen years old when Hitler invaded Austria. At 18, he was deported to Theresienstadt, and at 20 to Auschwitz. Together with his father, he crossed the ramp at Birkenau on September 29, 1944, unaware of what would happen. When he returned to Vienna in July 1945, nothing remained of his life except for a wide leather belt. The only thing he was allowed to keep after the selection. Until liberation, the belt was a symbol of survival for him, to which he clung every day. And it was forever a reminder of the darkest period of his life when he lost his entire family. Walter Fantl was one of the last survivors, passing away on October 24, 2019. Historian and journalist Gerhard Zeillinger traces, based on years of interviews and numerous original documents, the poignant journey of Walter Fantl's life, which leads from a happy childhood in Bischofstetten, Lower Austria, directly to the horrors of the Nazi era and the moments after...