Fred Diament, a retired Los Angeles clothing manufacturer who dedicated himself to teaching others about the Holocaust after surviving five years in Hitler's death camps, has died at age 81, the Los Angeles Times reports. Born in Germany, Diament was only 15 when he was sent to Sachsenhausen camp in 1939 as part of the first wave of Jews deported to concentration camps. Later, he was moved to Auschwitz, where his father was beaten to death and one of his brothers was hanged for participating in underground resistance. After surviving the death march from Auschwitz to Germany, he moved to Palestine and fought for Israel's independence with the 'Haganah', which later became the Israeli army. He also helped organize one of the first kibbutzim for Holocaust survivors and testified in the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals. His testimony helped convict six of Nazi guards at Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz.
Much of his energy later went toward preserving the memory of the Holocaust. He worked with the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. Diament also helped plan the World Gathering of Holocaust Survivors in the early 1980s, was president of the 1939 Club, and served on a founding committee of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
