Carl Roer tells the story of his father, Fred Roer.

Fred was born in Kerpen, Germany in 1920. Both his mothers and fathers’ families had lived in the area for many generations. As a child, Fred played soccer and attended school with Jewish and non-Jewish students. He had a happy childhood and enjoyed the close-knit Jewish community in Kerpen. Fred’s family was deported to Lodz, Poland in 1941. Fred was separated from his mother and older brother, Hermann, and was sent to a forced labor camp in Poznan. There he dug irrigation ditches and worked to excavate a large man-made lake from 1941-43. In his Shoah testimony, Fred remembers that the Germans were creating a ‘show city’ to glorify the Reich.

In 1943 when the project was completed, Fred was deported to Auschwitz. He arrived on August 27, 1943. He was assigned to a subcamp and worked in a coal mine. Fred was a part of a death march that left Auschwitz in January 1945. He was marched to Gross-Rosen, Regensburg, and was finally liberated by the US Army at the German-Austrian border near Mauthausen.

After liberation, Fred returned to Kerpen and stayed with family friends. Neither his mother nor his brother survived. Fred immigrated to the US in 1949. In Seattle, he married Sara Israel in 1952 and became a citizen in 1955.

Fred told his story as a member of the Holocaust Center Speakers Bureau for many years. He passed away in 2010. Carl Roer is retired and lives in the Seattle area. He is proud to tell the story of his father’s survival.