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

thumb|220px|right|Buchenwald, 1945. Mel Mermelstein is on the top bunk at the far right Before [[World War II broke out, Mermelstein lived in Munkacs, then part of Czechoslovakia (occupied by Hungary in 1938). On May 19, 1944, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. His parents, two sisters, and a brother were murdered in the camps. Before his father's death, Mermelstein had promised his father he would tell everyone what the Nazis were doing. judicial notice meaning that the court treated the gas chambers as common knowledge, and therefore did not require evidence that the gas chambers existed. On August 5, 1985, Judge Robert A. Wenke entered a judgment based upon the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment agreed upon by the parties on July 22, 1985. The judgment required IHR and other defendants to pay $90,000 to Mermelstein and to issue a letter of apology to "Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz" for "pain, anguish and suffering" caused to them.

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. .

References

  • Deniers in Revisionists Clothing - Information about the Institute for Historical Review and Mermelstein settlement.
  • Mel Mermelstein files (Nizkor Archive Directory, Shofar FTP)
  • Mel Mermelsteins non-profit organization