Overview

Szmuel "Sam" Pivnik (1 September 1926 – 30 August 2017) was a Polish Jew, Holocaust survivor and author. Born in Będzin as the second son of Lajb, a tailor, and Feigel Pivnik, he endured deportation, incarceration in Auschwitz and forced labor before liberation and later settled in Britain. He published a personal account of his experiences titled Survivor — Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom in 2012.

Early life and family

Pivnik grew up in the Jewish community of Będzin, in prewar Poland. His father worked as a tailor, and the family life of a provincial Jewish household was upended by the German invasion and the imposition of anti-Jewish measures. Like many young Polish Jews, Pivnik faced ghettoization and eventual deportation to concentration and extermination camps during World War II.

Imprisonment, camps and evacuation

Pivnik was registered in Auschwitz and tattooed with the prisoner number 135913. Records indicate that on 27 December 1943 he was admitted to the prisoner infirmary (Quarantine area KL Auschwitz II‑Birkenau, B IIa, Block 9) with suspected typhus. In January 1945, as Soviet forces approached, prisoners in the Fürstengrube complex and other subcamps were evacuated. On 19 January 1945 the Fürstengrube camp was evacuated and able prisoners were marched toward a railhead at Gleiwitz before being moved onward by assorted means, including barges.

After leaving the Fürstengrube area, Pivnik spent months doing forced construction work. He and roughly 200 other former Fürstengrube prisoners were later transported by barge along the River Elbe to Holstein in northern Germany. These chaotic movements were part of the Nazi effort to relocate inmates ahead of advancing Allied armies and are often described collectively as part of the death march and evacuation period from the camps. The group that included Pivnik was liberated by the British Army in Neustadt on 4 May 1945.

Postwar life and writing

After liberation Pivnik rebuilt his life, eventually moving to Britain where he lived for many years. He dedicated part of his later life to bearing witness to the Holocaust, sharing his story in talks and interviews as well as in his memoir, published on 30 August 2012. His testimony covers not only the mechanics of camp life and evacuation but also the struggle to recover identity, family memory and a sense of normalcy after such extreme trauma.

Legacy and notable facts

  • Personal identification in Auschwitz: tattoo number 135913.
  • Infirmary admission: 27 December 1943 (suspected typhus).
  • Evacuation from Fürstengrube: 19 January 1945; later transported via the Fürstengrube evacuation routes and by barge on the Elbe.
  • Liberated by the British Army at Neustadt, 4 May 1945.
  • Author of Survivor, published 30 August 2012.
  • Died in London on 30 August 2017 of pneumonia-related complications, two days before his 91st birthday.

Pivnik's writings and public testimony contribute to the body of survivor literature that is used in Holocaust education and remembrance. His account is cited by students, historians and educators as a first‑hand narrative of deportation, camp conditions, the forced evacuations of early 1945 and the long process of survival and postwar reconstruction of life.