1. Heinz Kurt Bolender was an SS sergeant during the Nazi era.
19 Facts About Kurt Bolender
1. 2.
Kurt Bolender died by suicide in prison two months prior to the end of the trial.
3.
Kurt Bolender was born in 1912 in Duisburg and stayed in school until the age of 16 when he became a blacksmith apprentice.
4.
Kurt Bolender was attached to the Action T4 euthanasia program and worked at Hartheim, Hadamar, Brandenburg and Sonnenstein killing centers where physically and mentally disabled Germans were exterminated by gassing and lethal injection.
5.
Kurt Bolender was involved in the cremation process of disposing of victims, as well as "test" gassing procedures during the Action T4.
6.
Kurt Bolender served at Sobibor extermination camp from April to August 1942, where he was one of the most feared SS officers.
7.
Kurt Bolender was the commander of Sobibor's extermination area and he personally supervised gassings and cremations.
8.
Kurt Bolender was entrusted with this job due to his prior working relationship with Sobibor commandant Franz Stangl.
9.
SS-Scharfuhrer Erich Fuchs, who served with Kurt Bolender, testified about him in 1966:.
10.
Part of Kurt Bolender's duties included supervision of the Jewish work details in Lager III.
11.
In Sobibor there was a working Jew whom Kurt Bolender ordered to box with another working Jew, and for his pleasure they hit each other almost until death.
12.
Kurt Bolender had a big dog, and when he was in charge of the platform workers, he set the dog at the Jews who did not work quickly enough.
13.
Paul Groth and Kurt Bolender would take Barry with them.
14.
In fall 1942, Kurt Bolender became the commander of the Ukrainian camp guards at Sobibor.
15.
Kurt Bolender was the one who chose the ten men to deliver the food to the workers in Camp III.
16.
On 18 January 1945, Kurt Bolender was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class.
17.
Kurt Bolender was recognized in May 1961 working as a bouncer at a nightclub in Germany and was immediately arrested.
18.
Kurt Bolender was arrested under an assumed name Heinz Brenner.
19.
At the trial Kurt Bolender initially claimed that he had never been in Sobibor, but instead fought against partisans around Lublin, Poland.