Brown leather belt worn by a Dutch Jewish political prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Arie Torner (1918-1991) was born in Wloclawek, Poland, to Malka (neé Olewski,?-1940) and Chaim Torner (?-1940). He grew up with a large family, including five brothers and one sister. At some point while Arie was growing up, the family moved from Poland to the Netherlands. They were all living together in Rotterdam when the German blitzkrieg against the Netherlands occurred. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, England and France declared war on Germany. The Netherlands planned to stay neutral in this war, as they had done in World War I. Adolf Hitler, Germany’s chancellor, even assured the Dutch government he would respect their neutrality. However, on May 10, 1940, Hitler broke his promise of nonaggression, and the German army invaded the Netherlands. On May 14, the German Luftwaffe bombed the city of Rotterdam. At the time of the bombings, Arie was on the opposite side of town from his family at a youth party. When he returned home the next morning, he found that both of his parents and all six of his siblings had been killed. That same day the Netherlands capitulated and the German forces occupied the nation. The death of his family and the German occupation pushed Arie to join the emerging underground Dutch resistance movement. He was often sent to infiltrate the German lines because he spoke German fluently. While behind German lines, he would steal papers detailing which areas they were planning to raid to collect Jews. While working for the resistance Arie spent months at a time away from home, sleeping and bathing outside. In October 1941, Arie was arrested with two other resistance fighters in Milaczewskie Mlyny, Poland. They were captured by the Ordnungspolizei or order police, also known as the Grune Polizei, or green police. Arie was transported to the Jewish ghetto of Kowale Panskie, or Kolonie Heidemühle, in German-occupied Poland. Arie continued working for the resistance while detained within the ghetto. One day, he was forced to watch 10 underground leaders get hanged after the guards found an illegal radio had been smuggled into the camp. The German leaders at the camp claimed it was punishment for evading work. On May 20, 1942, Arie was part of a group of roughly 200 men from the ghetto transported to Schwaningen (Swarsedz), labor camp in the Poznan region. At the camp he spent all day building railroad tracks for a German firm. The camp was liquidated, and in August 1943, Arie was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp. Upon arrival, the SS tattooed the inmate number, 141629, onto Arie’s left arm. Arie was forced to wear a red triangle badge on his uniform rather than the yellow Star of David typically assigned to Jewish prisoners, because he was arrested as a political prisoner. Shortly after his arrival, Arie was selected as part of a group of men sent to work at the Janina coal mine in Janinagrube, a subcamp of Auschwitz. The camp was also known as Johannagrube and Gute Hoffnunsgrube. The coal mine was operated by the German company Furstengrube GmbH. After less than a month at the coal mine, Arie and a group of other fit looking, young men were sent to the inmate hospital at the Auschwitz main camp. At the hospital he was subjected to medical experiments performed by SS doctors under the direction of SS Officer Josef Mengele. They injected diseases, such as trachoma, into his eyes, and scabies into his skin. They also injected him with diseased blood from other people, and cut off pieces of his skin without using anesthesia. On April 25, 1944, Mengele selected Arie to be sent to the gas chamber, but somehow his name got crossed off the list, so the medical experiments continued. He received 10 to 20 x-rays a day, and spent six weeks unconscious while they experimented on him. These torturous experiments, along with others, led to permanent heart damage and skin cancer. Eventually, Arie was sent back to the Janina coal mine. In January 1945, as Soviet forces were advancing towards Auschwitz, the camp was evacuated. On the 18th, Arie and the men at Janinagrube were sent on a forced march to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Germany. The march lasted about 18 days, during which they were given nothing to eat, and any prisoner who fell down was shot. Of the approximately 800 men sent on the march, only around 200 survived. By the time they arrived at Gross-Rosen, Arie had developed pneumonia. At the camp, the SS were shooting anyone who could not work, so when the SS asked if anyone was an electrician, Arie lied and said he was. They forced him to work cleaning screws at an airplane factory in Zittau, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen. On May 8, 1945, Soviet forces liberated the camp. In December, Arie arrived at the Fürth displaced persons camp in the American-occupied zone of Bavaria, Germany. He lived at the camp until September 1947, when he was able to return to the Netherlands. Arie operated a clothing factory in Amsterdam before immigrating to the United States. He departed on May 24, 1956, aboard the SS Maasdam. He settled in Nashville, Tennessee, where he worked as a tailor. He became a US citizen on December 1, 1961, and shortly thereafter resettled in Falls Church, Virginia. He worked as a sales manager in a clothing store in Washington, DC, and was an active member of the Temple Beth El congregation of Alexandria. Arie spent his time visiting Northern Virginia high schools where he spoke to students about his experiences during the Holocaust. In 1974, Arie provided testimony to the German Embassy in Washington DC in the criminal case against Heinrich Niemeyer, a former SS guard at Janinagrube.

The belt was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2017 by Louis Widawski, in memory of Arie Torner.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Louis Widawski in Memory of Arie Torner