KHUJAND, August 29, 2009, Asia-Plus — The 84-year-old resident of Khujand Sami Jalilov, who is former Auschwitz prisoner, recently returned from the United States. He visited the United State at the invitation of the U.S. public paying tribute to victims of World War II and Holocaust.
Sami Jalilov was wounded and taken prison during September battles in western Ukraine in 1994. He was sent to Auschwitz and then he was transported to Italy.
Along with other prisoners Sami Jalilov was freed by servicemen of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division. Due to care of Americans he got well and returned home. He had worked as teacher in the Bobjonghafurov district until his retirement age.
By decree of mayor of Lincoln (the United States) Sami Jalilov was reportedly given a title of honorable citizen o this city.
In all, 16 residents of Tajikistan had languished in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps and extermination camps, operational during World War II. The camp commandant, Rudolf Hoss, testified at the Nuremberg Trials that up to 3 million people had died at Auschwitz. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has revised this figure to 1.1 million, about 90% of whom were Jews from almost every country in Europe. Most victims were killed in Auschwitz II”s gas chamber using Zyklon B; other deaths were caused by systematic starvation, forced labor, lack of disease control, individual executions, and purported “medical experiments”.
