A 92-year-old Oregon man who survived 35 months in a concentration camp died Tuesday when he was hit by a vehicle while crossing the street, the Oregonian reported.
Alter Wiener was struck by a Honda Accord around 5 p.m. in Hillsboro, the newspaper reported. He died at a hospital.
The driver, Craig Struckman, 50, will not face any charges or citations, police told the Oregonian. Sgt. Eric Bunday, a Hillsboro police spokesman, said Wiener was crossing in the middle of the street -- and not in a crosswalk -- in a curve in the road. It was also rainy and dark and Wiener was wearing dark clothes, Bunday told the newspaper.
In 2007, Wiener wrote "From a Name to a Number: A Holocaust Survivor's Autobiography," noting that "I have never been able to bring down an iron curtain on my past."
Wiener was born Oct. 8, 1926, in Chrzanow, Poland, located near the German border. The Nazis invaded his hometown in 1939, and when he was 15 Wiener was put in a forced labor camp at Blechamer, according to the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. He was shifted to camps at Brande, Gross Masselwitz and Lettendorf before landing at Waldenburg in September 1944, according to the website. He was liberated there by the Russian army in May 1945, the Oregonian reported.
After a stint in Palestine, Wiener moved to New York, where he worked for 40 years. He moved to Hillsboro in 2000, the newspaper reported.
After moving there, the Oregon Holocaust Resource Center approached Wiener and asked him to share his story, the newspaper reported. According to his website, Wiener has spoken to 975 audiences through the Resource Center's speakers bureau.
"The Holocaust is a ghastly and repulsive historical nightmare," Wiener wrote on his Amazon page. "Not all physical and mental scars can be completely healed with passing years; some extend through time. However, I can not let grief immobilize me."
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