Pery Broad
| Pery Broad | |
 On trial during Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials | |
| Born | 25 April 1921 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
|---|---|
| Died | 28 November 1993 (aged 72) Düsseldorf, Germany |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  National Socialist Germany
|
| Service/branch |  Schutzstaffel
|
| Rank | SS-Unterscharführer |
Pery Broad (or Perry Broad; 1921-1993) was a non-commissioned SS-officer in the political department at Auschwitz.
Life
He was born in Brazil, came to Germany with his German mother at the age of five. The Brazilian father stayed behind in his home country. He spent his youth in Freiburg im Breisgau, later in Berlin, where he attended elementary school and Gymnasium. In 1940, he passed his Abitur and then studied at the Technical University of Berlin. At the age of ten he had joined the Hitler Youth.
At the beginning of 1942 he volunteered for the Waffen-SS and after military training he was sent to the front for a short time. Considered unfit for combat due to myopia, he was transferred to the Auschwitz work camp in April 1942. As is usually the case with newcomers, he was first assigned to a guard company. At his own request, the SS transferred him to the Political Department in the summer of 1942.
At Auschwitz, because he spoke English, he is stated to have among other tasks have worked as a translator and interrogator. After war, he was captured by the British, and was possibly seen as a particularly useful "confessor" because of his English knowledge. He allegedly wrote a politically correct report on Auschwitz. The British did not publish this report, but allegedly passed it on to the Communists in Poland, who "revealed" it only twenty years later at the 1963 to 1965 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. At the earlier Nuremberg trials, an alleged affidavit (written sworn statement) by Broad was used instead.
Despite being found guilty of supervising "selections" at Auschwitz (to the alleged gas chamber or forced labor), as well as of participating in interrogations, tortures and executions, Broad managed to avoid prison sentences at both trials, counting time already served while waiting for trial. He also avoided being extradited to Poland, where almost all of the accused at the Polish Auschwitz trial were executed or sentenced to long imprisonments. This lenient treatment was likely in part due to his politically correct accounts.
Broad also testified for the prosecution at the Tesch trial. He was released from British captivity in 1947 and then worked as a clerk in a sawmill in Munster (Örtze) and other private companies.
On 19 August 1965, the Frankfurt am Main jury sentenced Broad to four years in prison. In February 1966, he was released from prison because the detention on remand was counted towards the sentence. In the same year, the Auschwitz State Museum published the Broad Report.
After the imprisonment, Broad lived an unremarkable life and died in November 1993 in Düsseldorf.
See also
- Holocaust testimonial evidence: Affidavits - on numerous other written statements argued to support revisionist views
External links
- From the Records of the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, Part 8 - the section "Pery Broad"
- Lectures on the Holocaust—Controversial Issues Cross Examined - discusses Perry Broad in the section "4.2.5. Pressure, Fear, Threats, Brainwashing, Torture" and "4.5.5. Pery S. Broad"
- Auschwitz: A Judge Looks at the Evidence - Discusses Perry Broad in several different places
- Eyewitness Reports and Perpetrator Confessions of the Holocaust—30 Gas-Chamber Witnesses Scrutinized - Discusses Pery Broad in Chapter 3.2
Note that besides the external sources listed here, an alleged Holocaust confessor/witness may be extensively discussed in the external sources listed in the articles on the particular Holocaust camps and/or other Holocaust phenomena the individual is associated with.
