Rudolf Danel survived a desperately poor childhood, then survived time as prisoner of war after the defeat of the Polish army, when he was a member of the orchestra of the condemned at Auschwitz.
Danel lived to the age of 103, and was one of the oldest known Auschwitz survivors. In an email to Danel’s son Alexander, Szymon Kowalski, deputy head of the Auschwitz archive, said that Danel was one of three known survivors over the age of 100 to die since last December.
He died of natural causes May 14 in Presence Resurrection Retirement Community in Chicago, according to his son Alexander. He had lived for many years in Chicago’s Mayfair neighborhood.
Danel was born in 1915 in the Silesia region of central Europe. Along with his mother and nine older siblings, he often struggled for basic necessities, his son said.
“His father was not a good father,” Alexander Danel said. “The hunger of his childhood and the lack of steady shelter clearly shaped him as a person.”
His mother died when he was 10. He responded to his childhood challenges with a certainty that education would take him out of poverty. With that in mind, he joined the Polish army when he was 14, his son said, understanding that the army would provide educational opportunities. Those opportunities involved teaching him to play musical instruments, including the trumpet.
He left the Army in the 1930s, but was drafted ahead of the 1939 German invasion of Poland. His army service was brief as the Polish army was soon on the run from German invaders.
In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo for what his son called “tenuous connections” to the Polish underground. On June 25, 1943, he arrived in Auschwitz, in what Kowalski in his email called “collective transportation.”
Danel managed to secure an audition for the orchestra, which included some top talent from among the prisoners. His sister sent him his trumpet, his son said. Six days a week, the orchestra played march music for prisoners. On Sundays, they were forced to play for their captors.
Danel was eventually sent from Auschwitz to the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp in Germany, where he also played in an orchestra made up of prisoners. He was sent to work in the Heinkel aircraft factory which was often attacked by Allied bombers. It was a sound Danel welcomed, his son said.
With the German defeat imminent, Danel and some other prisoners were marched toward the sea, where the Germans planned to load them on to boats with the expectation the boats would be sunk.
On May 3, 1945, he was among prisoners liberated by American troops. He lived the rest of his life with his tattooed Auschwitz prisoner number, 125792, visible on his left forearm.
He eventually made his way to Munich, enrolled in university there and received a degree in business.
In 1950, through a connection with the Polish American Congress, he was able to come to Chicago. He worked at a variety of jobs here until about the early 1960s when he went into social work for county and state social service agencies. While not formally trained as a social worker, his son said in those days he could qualify for the jobs because of his university degree and by passing a civil service test.
He retired in 1987.
Danel returned to Auschwitz in 2015 and again in 2018. Auschwitz archivist Kowalski spoke about meeting the elder Danel in his email to Alexander Danel.
“Both of our meetings — in 2015 and 2018 — were for me personally an extraordinary experience,” Kowalski said. “Many times I talked about the person of Mr. Danel both in the museum, during lectures and workshops for young people, as well as family and friends. His story will remain with me forever.”
Danel was married twice. His first wife, Maria, died in 1974. His second wife, Janina, died in 2009. A daughter, Elizabeth Lohrey, died in 2016.
Survivors also include a daughter Isabella; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
A private celebration of life is planned.
Graydon Megan is freelance reporter.