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Pierre Schillio registration number Birkeneau 145986 - registration number Dachau 90719

Photo 1kl Pierre Schillio in the presence of Patricia Mirallès, Secretary of State to the Minister for the Armed Forces, with responsibility for Veterans and Remembrance, at the ceremony to officialise the Union of Nazi Camp Remembrance Associations, on 3 October 2023.

"I'll tell you one thing, I was a 13-year-old child when I entered the Birkenau camp, but 8 days later, I was no longer a child"

Pierre Schillio, the youngest person to be deported to Dachau at the age of 13, left us on 16 August 2024, after 39 years as Secretary General of the Amicale Nationale Française de Dachau.

CID president Dominique Boueilh attended his funeral in Caussade on 20 August and paid tribute to him in the presence of his family, the mayor of Caussade Gérard Hébrard and members of his municipal team, Joëlle Delpech-Boursier and Danielle Périssé, members of the Amicale de Dachau, and Mr Majorel, flag bearer of the Légion d'Honneur, sent by Colonel Philippe Bon, President of the Société des Membres de la Légion d'Honneur section de Tarn-et-Garonne.

Pierre Schillio promoted to Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, by his deportation comrade Jean Samuel, in Paris on 3 April 2024.

Pierre was born on 28 January 1930. For 4 generations, the Schillio family has been piano distributors on rue Cadet and then rue du Faubourg Montmartre in Paris. The first Schillio store was also in Lille, on rue des Pyramides. Unfortunately, this long and noble family tradition in the piano business was to see its destiny put to the test by the advent of the Second World War and the extermination of the Jews by the Nazi regime.

In August 1943, a Kommadantur captain was shot dead in Neuilly; the Schillio family were among the families of hostages arrested in reprisal and immediately taken to Drancy. From there, the prisoners were all sent on convoy no. 59 to "Pitchipoï", as they called it, which meant "nowhere". Pierre was only 13 at the time.

After a harrowing two-day journey, they arrived on 4 September 1943 at Auschwitz 2 Birkenau, the sinister extermination camp in Poland. In a moving video account, Pierre tells us about the precise moment when he and his father were separated from the rest of his family, his mother, his two teenage sisters, his maternal grandfather and his cousin, who would disappear forever in the smoke of the crematoria.

In the same testimony, Pierre said, "I'm going to tell you something, I was a 13-year-old child when I entered the Birkenau camp, but 8 days later, I was no longer a child". This stolen childhood was given the number 145986.

Two months later, Pierre and his father were among the 3,000 deportees transferred to Varsovie to wipe out the Jewish ghetto. After 9 months' work, Pierre and his father left Varsovie for Dachau, escaping death thanks to Pierre's boldness in taking his father by the hand and telling the SS officer in charge of the operation in German that they were both prepared to walk 100 kilometres, despite being tired and ill. This is how 4,000 deportees left Varsovie for Dachau, first on foot and then by train. Only 3,000 remained on arrival. For 4 days, the deportees walked the Polish roads, worn down by fatigue, consumed by the desire to drink, beaten by truncheons and torn by pain. On arriving in Dachau on 6 August 1944, Pierre went straight to the infirmary; as well as having the soles of his feet torn off, he had a fracture of the scaphoid bone, caused by weakness. He was treated for two months. Then he became a nurse in the "revire" alongside Doctor Lafitte. His father was not far away, in the same camp, a few blocks away, in quarantine. They exchanged letters.

The youngest Frenchman in the camp, Pierre worked in the same block with Monsignor Piquet and General Delestraint (executed on 19 April 1945 in Dachau).

On 29 April 1945, the camp was liberated by the Americans. Pierre and his father were repatriated to Paris on 17 May 1945, reunited with what little remained of their family and gradually resuming a "normal" life, alongside the indelible scars.

Pierre was Secretary General of the Amicale Nationale de Dachau for 39 years. In 1973, he succeeded Dr Georges Fully, medical inspector general of the prison administration, who was killed in an attack on his home on 20 June 1973. Pierre had previously been a member of the Board of Directors and the Association's flag bearer. He continued to carry the flag whenever necessary, in particular at the rekindling of the flame under the Arc de Triomphe every 29 April to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau camp.

Pierre has witnessed the life of the Amicale de Dachau from the very beginning. His longevity on the job has enabled him to rub shoulders with all the association's presidents: Edmond Michelet, the founding president, Doctor André Bohn, Colonel Charles Arnould, Louis-Eugène Sirvent, General André Delpech, and more recently the first second-generation president Dominique Boueilh.

Pierre Schillio promoted Officier de la Légion d'Honneur, Paris, 3 April 2024

Pierre worked for the association with great dedication and kindness. He has played a prominent and invaluable role in handing over the Amicale to new generations. Pierre was a regular speaker at schools in the Paris region, in particular his former lycée Janson de Sailly, and honoured the city of Paris with his presence at all its commemoration ceremonies, receiving the Medal of the City of Paris from Jacques Chirac.

A video testimony was produced under the direction of the Shoah Memorial.

Pierre Schillio was promoted to the rank of Officier de la Légion d'Honneur on 3 April this year by Jean Samuel, his deportation comrade. The medal of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur had been awarded to him on 6 September 1962 by Edmond Michelet, founding president of the amicale des anciens déportés de Dachau.