Szymon Sukiennik

Szymon Sukiennik was 6 years old when he arrived in Belgium in 1929 with his parents, Chana Szumilinski and Rafal Sukiennik, and his older sister, Liba.

In the summer of 1942, Szymon Sukiennik was sent as a forced labourer to the Organisation Todt’s construction sites in Northern France. Subsequently he and 1,229 other forced labourers were taken to Muizen station just outside Mechelen. Here Transports 16 and 17 were prepared with the numbers being made from the Dossin Barracks. The two transports left Mechelen on 31 October and reached Auschwitz-Birkenau on 3 November. Szymon Sukiennik was chosen for work in the concentration camp complex and was registered under number 27,857. In January 1944 he was in Birkenau. He was in the death march of January 1945, which arrived in Dachau on 28 January. He was then transferred to the Mühldorf Kommando in February 1945, where he was liberated. He was repatriated on 27 June. He was the only survivor in his family. His father, Rafal, his mother, Chana, and his sister, Liba were able to remain in hiding until March 1944. After their arrest they were taken to the Dossin Sammellager on 25 March 1944 and were put on Transport 24 on 4 April. There is no further record of them after the arrival of this transport at Auschwitz-Birkenau.