Louis De Wijze

Louis De Wijze

Louis De Wijze was born on May 30th, 1922. Louis passed away July 20th, 2009 at 87 years old. Louis De Wijze was born in Boxmeer, Netherlands.

Louis De Wijze was a Holocaust survivor and Dutch entrepreneur.

Louis was born May 30, 1922 in Boxmeer, where he also grew up and in 1932 moved to Nijmegan.

In the night of October 2 and 3, his family, except for his sister Elly, who had been lucky enough to go into hiding, got arrested by the German occupiers and was taken off to Camp Westerbrook. At the end of March 1944, he got transported to camp Auschwitz. He stayed there until the camp was liberated early in 1945. One week earlier, he’d escaped from the death march.

Louis returned from the war, along with sister Kitty, who’d been in some other camps. Over 20 other family members did not survive.

He became the director of Homburg, a meat company in Cuijk. Like his dad before him, who also owned a meat company before the start of the war. Under his leadership, the company became a major international player in meat processing.

Louis’s stories from his experiences during World War II were recorded by Kees van Cadsand and got published in 1995.

Louis also gave many lectures where he actively campaigned against racism and anti-Semitism. He was one of the creators of the monument of the 102,000 stones in the Westerbrook Camp Memorial Center.

He was decorated as an officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Then in 2002, he got the Burgemeester Dales Prize, which was named after Ien Dales.

Louis and Kitty both told their life stories in 1996 to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. These stories are included in the Jewish Historical Museum’s 2000 Witnesses Tell Collection.

He died July 20, 2009 in Berg en Dal, Netherlands. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Vierlingsbeek.

Only My Life: A Survivor’s Story is about how in March of 1944, Louis (21 years old) got sent from the Netherlands to the Monowitz labor camp (Auschwitz III), which was part of Hitler’s infamous Final Solution complex in Poland.

Enduring inhuman cruelty and starvation, he took part in a daring smuggling operation in the heart of a Nazi concentration camp. He tells about his struggle for survival in the treacherous conditions of the concentration camps that he was in.

Louis chronicles his own survival, by both luck and courage, in a world full of death. Told in his own gritty and frank style, this is the story of a man’s triumph of will over brutality and hate.

Related Authors

Fans of Louis De Wijze also enjoy these authors:

1. Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower Series.
2. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series.
3. Michael Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch Series.
4. Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone Series.
5. Clive Cussler, author of the Dirk Pitt Series.

Louis De Wijze: F.A.Q