Mel Mermelstein

Melvin Mermelstein (born Moric Mermelstein; September 25, 1926 – January 28, 2022) was a Czechoslovak-born American Holocaust survivor and autobiographer. A Jew, he was the sole survivor of his family's extermination at Auschwitz concentration camp.

He is best known for his litigation with the Institute for Historical Review over evidence of gas chambers in German concentration camps during World War II. The legal dispute was resolved in Mermelstein's favor, without the court giving an opinion on the merits of the dispute, since it ruled that the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz is a legally indisputable fact.

Life and career

In 1986, the IHR, along with its founder Willis Carto, sued Mermelstein for allegedly libeling them during an interview with a New York City radio station, but dropped the lawsuit in 1988. Mermelstein also sued the IHR in 1988 for an article in the IHR Newsletter that examined what it considered to be flaws and inconsistencies in his 1981 lawsuit testimony.

In 1988, Mermelstein (who was a member of the International Auschwitz Committee) included photo-enlarged copies of IHR's checks to him totaling $90,000 along with their apology letter in the exhibit "From Ashes to Life" at the Mills House Art Gallery in Garden Grove, California. The exhibit also included other Holocaust documentation from Mermelstein's collection, including photos of his family and of other emaciated camp victims and survivors.

Death Mermelstein died from complications of COVID-19 at home in Long Beach, California, on January 28, 2022. He was 95.

Works By bread alone (1981) Auschwitz Study Foundation. .