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MP pushing for release of Auschwitz files

February 2, 2012 13:23

By

Martin Bright,

Martin Bright

1 min read

The Ministry of Defence and the National Archives were under increasing pressure this week to release papers relating to Yitzhak Persky, the father of Israeli president Shimon Peres, who was held in a prisoner of war camp for British soldiers at Auschwitz.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, has written to Defence Secretary Philip Hammond asking for his help in releasing Mr Persky's service record.

The young Polish Zionist from British mandate Palestine joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper on the outbreak of war but was captured in Greece, where he possibly took on the identity of a fallen comrade from New Zealand. He spent the rest of the war in various PoW camps across Nazi occupied Europe.

The Israeli president has previously spoken publicly about his father being held in Lamsdorf, a massive facility in Silesia of which the Auschwitz camp was a satellite. His autobiography states that his father was held near Auschwitz.

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