Otto Adler
Encyclopedia
Otto Adler is the president of the Jewish Association of Romania, a Holocaust
survivor and a polyglot
. He can speak fluently in Romanian
, Hebrew, English
, French
, German
, Hungarian
and Russian
.
family from Cluj
. In 1953 he graduated at the Mechanical Faculty from the Politehnica University of Bucharest where he taught until 1994. During 1961 - 1991 he worked at the Metallurgic Research Institute from Bucharest.
. He was 15 years old when he arrived at the camp but despite a frail appearance managed to avoid certain death by answering that his real age was 17 when asked by the guards. This advice was received from the other inmates because everyone under the age of 13 was sent to the gas chamber along with those under 17 years which weren't considered physically fit. He weighed 70 kg when he arrived, but had only 29 kg when he left the camp.
in 2007. When talking about antisemitism in Romania Mr Adler declared :
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
survivor and a polyglot
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
. He can speak fluently in Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, Hebrew, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
Early life
He was born in 1929 into a JewishHistory of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
family from Cluj
Cluj-Napoca
Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...
. In 1953 he graduated at the Mechanical Faculty from the Politehnica University of Bucharest where he taught until 1994. During 1961 - 1991 he worked at the Metallurgic Research Institute from Bucharest.
World War II
During World War II Otto Adler was a prisoner at the Auschwitz-Birkenau campAuschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. He was 15 years old when he arrived at the camp but despite a frail appearance managed to avoid certain death by answering that his real age was 17 when asked by the guards. This advice was received from the other inmates because everyone under the age of 13 was sent to the gas chamber along with those under 17 years which weren't considered physically fit. He weighed 70 kg when he arrived, but had only 29 kg when he left the camp.
After the war
He was awarded the Order of the Star of RomaniaOrder of the Star of Romania
The Order of the Star of Romania is Romania's highest civil order. It is awarded by the President of Romania...
in 2007. When talking about antisemitism in Romania Mr Adler declared :