bank. His career took off and he became head of the department.
In 1974, following some dubious transactions, Herstatt Bank went bankrupt with a debt of 1.2 billion German marks (about $435 million, at the time), which shook the national and global banking industries alike. Dattel and other senior figures were accused of fraud, forgery and breach of trust. To escape trial, the bank’s owners accused Dattel of being ultimately responsible the debacle, whereupon the “golden boy” became the “international Jew” and target of a shameless antisemitic campaign in the German media, rife with clichés and cartoons and photos that played up Dattel’s protruding nose.
Following 10 months in custody, in which the demons of the past overcame him, Dattel was declared unfit to stand trial. Psychiatrists who examined him found him to be suffering from a “concentration camp symptom” (the concept of posttraumatic stress disorder was not yet developed then). But the campaign of vilification against him and against his family continued long afterward.
A few years ago, Gruppe 5 Filmproduktion in Germany set out to make a documentary film about Dattel’s life, titled “Persecuted: The Seven Lives of Danny Dattel”. In October 2022 he returned to Auschwitz with the producers and was filmed in and around the remains of Block 10. The film concludes with his assertion: “At the Wannsee Conference the Nazis planned to annihilate all the Jews. They did not succeed. I am still alive.”
Dattel did not live to see the film about his life, which premiered in Germany in 2024. He passed away on February 13, 2023, at the age of eighty-three – eighty years after first entering the gates of Auschwitz.
The fate of the three children Alina Brewda saw playing on the steps of Block 10 was unique by any measure. Bronislaw, Karol-Zvi and Peter-Danny survived for two years in
a place where being a child was a death sentence. To their last day, they bore the prisoner’s number that was tattooed on their arm as children – indelible testimony to
a childhood that was stolen and a miracle that allowed them to survive.
Yoel Yaari is professor emeritus of neurosciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Holocaust scholar.
His recent book “Portrait of a Women” was published by Kinneret-Zmora. Text was published in “Haaretz” on February 6, 2026.
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