Pinchas Gutter is a survivor of six German Nazi concentration camps who now lives in Toronto, Canada. He was born in Łódź and was eight years old when the war started. Pinchas, along with his parents and twin sister, fled to Warsaw, where they were confined in the Warsaw ghetto for two and a half years. They were captured in April 1943 and deported to Majdanek death camp in occupied Poland. The Nazis murdered Pinchas's father, mother, and sister upon arrival. Pinchas was later sent to a succession of camps; he was liberated by the Soviet Army from the camp and ghetto in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia known as Theresienstadt on May 8, 1945. After the war, the 13-year-old Pinchas was taken to an orphanage in England. He later moved to Paris to live with a cousin, and left for Israel in 1950, where he volunteered for the army. After three years in the army and a stint working for a textile factory, he attended school to learn Hebrew. As a student he met his wife, Dorothy. They moved to England and married there. He was then offered a job in Brazil and lived in Sao Paolo for a year. Pinchas and Dorothy later moved to South Africa, where they lived until 1985, when they moved and settled in Toronto. Pinchas and Dorothy had two daughters and a son. Pinchas is an active member of his community, serving as a cantor in his synagogue, and still speaks and shares his story today.
Pinchas Gutter Playlist
Clips from Pinchas Gutter's Testimony
Pinchas Gutter's Message to Youth
In his interactive biography taken in 2014, Pinchas asks today’s youth to be accepting and tolerant of one another.
Pinchas Gutter's Message to Youth
Language: English
In his interactive biography taken in 2014, Pinchas asks today’s youth to be accepting and tolerant of one another.
Pinchas Gutter on Fleeing to Warsaw
Language: English
Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter describes how he, his mother and sister took the train to Warsaw posing as Christians - which meant that Pinchas's long payos, or sidelocks, needed to be cut. Pinchas describes the experience first in his testimony for the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre in 1993, and then in his testimony for USC Shoah Foundation in 1995.
Pinchas Gutter recalls his liberation from Theresienstadt Ghetto
Language: English
Pinchas Gutter recalls his arrival at the Theresienstadt Ghetto in Czechoslovakia two weeks prior to his liberation by the Soviet armed forces in 1945. He relates he refused to participate in the mistreatment of the German ghetto guards by Soviet soldiers during the liberation of the ghetto. He remembers the sadness he felt over the mistreatment of anyone even of perpetrators.