We mourn the loss of Daniel Chanoch

Press information MKÖ 30.09.2024

Concentration camp survivor Daniel Chanoch has passed away

‘We are deeply saddened by the loss of Daniel Chanoch.
A great fighter for solidarity and for ‘never again’ has left us. We have lost a great friend and are infinitely saddened.’ – Christa Bauer, Managing Director of the Mauthausen Committee Austria.

Daniel ‘Danny’ Chanoch was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, in February 1932 to Frida and Shraga Chanoch. His childhood ended with the Nazi invasion in June 1941.

Daniel Chanoch and his family were driven from their home and deported to the Kaunas ghetto. The ghetto was dissolved in July 1944 and the prisoners were deported to other concentration camps. Via Stutthof concentration camp, where his mother and sister were left behind, he was sent to a satellite camp of Dachau concentration camp, where he was separated from his father.

Together with 130 other children aged between 11 and 15, Daniel Chanoch was selected by the SS and sent on to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp via the Dachau concentration camp. This group of children managed not to be separated thanks to their enormous cohesion and solidarity.

As a 12-year-old boy in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, Daniel Chanoch was forced to transport the dead to the crematoria on a wooden cart.

During his imprisonment in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, two thirds of these children were murdered by the National Socialists. Chanoch survived. Together with other concentration camp prisoners, he had to survive the ‘death marches’ to other concentration camps after the Auschwitz concentration camp was evacuated. Chanoch also had to experience the Mauthausen concentration camp and the Gunskirchen satellite camp.

Chanoch was liberated from the Gunskirchen satellite camp on 5 May 1945. He had survived six concentration camps.

His parents and sister were murdered by the National Socialists. After an odyssey in Italy, where he met his brother Uri again, he made his way to Israel and began a new life there.

Daniel Chanoch never tired of reporting on what he had to experience. If his state of health allowed him to, he also travelled to the International Liberation Ceremony at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial, the Festival of Joy and the liberation ceremony of the Gunskirchen satellite camp every year.

Daniel Chanoch was the main speaker at the 2016 Festival of Joy together with his granddaughter. He addressed the audience with these words on the thematic focus of ‘International Solidarity’:

‘What is solidarity? Solidarity is when you are marching in a death march on 18 January 1945 and have no strength left, then a comrade comes and with the last of his strength helps you to walk. (...) Solidarity is when you have nothing to eat and the last bit of bread is shared with a comrade.’

In 2022, Daniel Chanoch presented MKÖ Chairman Willi Mernyi with a highly symbolic gift as part of the liberation ceremony in Gunskirchen: a slice of an old olive tree that had grown in Israel. The trunk of an olive tree is a symbol of peace and of ‘never again’. A naturally grown hole in the middle of the trunk symbolises the huge hole that was created after the Shoah, not only in the survivors but also in their descendants.

Daniel Chanoch described Gunskirchen as ‘hell on earth’ and persistently campaigned for a worthy memorial to be erected at the site of this satellite concentration camp.

‘We will do everything in our power to realise Daniel Chanoch's wish for a memorial in Gunskirchen. Our thoughts are with his family in these painful times.’ - Willi Mernyi, Chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria

Orbituary Daniel Chanoch (PDF)

Please send enquiries to

Willi Mernyi, Chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria
phone: +43 (0) 664 103 64 65