Names Not Numbers

Eric Blaustein

Chemitz, Germany

Buchenwald Concentration Camp

1926

Eric Blaustein

Chemitz, Germany

1926

Eric was born in 1926 in Chemitz, Saxony, in Eastern Germany, to a middle-class family. Before the Holocaust, Eric and his family were not particularly religious. In fact, Eric didn’t even know that he was Jewish; he thought he was just an ordinary German kid. However, by 1934, as the Nazi regime grew in power, his parents decided, "They tell us we are Jews, then we are Jews."

Eric was only six years old when the Nazis came to power. His grandparents left Germany in 1933, but the rest of the family stayed behind, believing life would continue as usual.

Life in Chemitz remained relatively normal until 1938, when the situation for Jews began to deteriorate rapidly. Eric’s father joined the underground resistance in another city, while Eric and his immediate family were hidden by an influential German family.

At the age of 15, Eric became a grave digger, using false papers that identified him as a member of the Hitler Youth to avoid suspicion.

In September 1944, Eric was arrested as a suspected deserter of the German army. Deserters were typically hanged, so Eric decided it was safer to admit that he was Jewish rather than risk being executed. He was subsequently sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where very few Jews remained by that time.

Upon arriving at Buchenwald, a group of Italian prisoners helped Eric survive. A young Italian had recently died, and they took the deceased's number from his uniform and gave it to Eric, allowing him to assume the identity of "Luigi" and abandon his real name, Eric Blaustein. This act of solidarity helped Eric endure the horrors of the camp.

He spent the next five months working as a laborer before being liberated from a satellite camp of Buchenwald in April 1945.

After the war, Eric pursued an education in civil engineering. In 1948, he fought in the Israeli War of Independence, serving as a lieutenant in the Israeli army. During his time in Israel, Eric met his future wife. In 1954, the Blausteins immigrated to the United States.

They initially settled in New York before moving to Cleveland and eventually to Pittsburgh.

Eric and his wife have two children, many grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. His daughter and her family live in Chicago, while his son and his family reside in Israel.

Names Not Numbers

Eric Blaustein

Eric Blaustein

The End