Nazi concentration camp survivor found strangled (in his apartment, NYC)

[Turborama]

Source: CNN

By Jason Kessler

— A 90-year-old Nazi concentration camp survivor was found strangled Thursday in his Upper East Side apartment, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner said Friday.

Felix Brinkmann, a native of Latvia, was a Holocaust survivor who escaped death for a year while he was in the Mauthausen, Ebensee and Auschwitz camps. Five times he had been slated for the gas chambers, but each time he used his fluency in German to talk his way out.

After the war ended, he was stunned to discover his wife, who had also been shipped to Auschwitz, alive and well in Poland.

Read more: http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/31/nazi-concentration-camp-survivor-found-strangled/

---

This is so sad and fucked up. Words fail me.

[rockymountaindem]

1. God, that's awful

Words fail me too.

[Liberal_in_LA]

15. horrible

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Who the FUCK strangles a 90-year-old man?

There is supposed to be some kind of karmic deal that says if you survived something like the Holocaust, you get a pass on the rest of the rotten things that can happen in this life.

You get to live a long time, with loving children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, a loving spouse, comfortable in your world, and then you die without pain in your own bed, surrounded by your loved ones when you are very, very old.

I do not hold with the death penalty, but when they catch whoever did this, something should be done.

Something....................

[iandhr]

3. I also

oppose the death penalty. but lock person who did this up and throw away the key

[madaboutharry]

5. I have known several holocaust survivors

in my life because of the communities that I have grown up in and lived in. I will tell you that I know of no one who got some kind of karmic deal. Tragedies and bad things continued to follow them throughout their lives. Some lived better lives than some others, but not one person that I know who survived a concentration camp got any kind of pass. In fact, in some way their lives always seemed more painful.

I like your thought though, that it should have been the way you say.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. I know two people,

and, yes, their lives have been very, very difficult. I dream, though, and wish for them.

Both had one child, and both children grew up to be very troubled individuals, overly-protected by the parents (big surprise), and not terribly well-equipped to deal with the world.

Tragedies continue, but this murder transcends something I cannot even name......

[corkhead]

22. over-zealous government bureaucrats anticipating Obama's godless socialist healthcare

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. As it turned out,

the old guy had a taste for prostitutes, and it now looks like one of his "dates" was involved in the murder/burglary.

Interesting old fella, but a real player...........

http://tinyurl.com/nbp7h2

[hlthe2b]

4. That is beyond belief...

and words...

[gimama]

6. this is so sad

I HOPE there will be PEACE, & JUSTICE, for this man & his Family.

[ck4829]

7. There is a monster in New York

If someone could do this to a 90 year old Holocaust survivor, then there's no telling just how evil this person is.

[marmar]

9. That's terrible.....

Man survived the Nazis....and is taken out like this.

[Downwinder]

10. More info.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/31/2009-07-31_nazi_survivor_guido_brinkmann_90_slain_on_upper_e_side.html

[Berry Cool]

11. Attention, Alanis: THIS is what "ironic" really means.

It's also:

--sad
--horrible
--outrageous
--depressing
--you name it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. Terrible

"He was on the line to be killed, and they pulled him off the extermination line four times," said Dietl, who hailed Brinkmann as the godfather of his son.

It's a fine story, but Auschwitz didn't work that way. This is a combination of Brinkmann telling stories and Dietl exaggerating.

[proteus_lives]

13. RIP Mr. Brinkmann.

It's over, no one can hurt you again. I'm sorry the world didn't treat you better.

Godspeed to a better place.


How could someone do such a thing? If they catch them, they should hand them over to the Mossad. It's the only thing I think can even approach a "fair" punishment.

[Gwendolyn]

20. Why would they do that? Does the Mossad now handle cases for the NYPD?

Brinkmann isn't Jewish, if that's where you're going with that? Even if he were, it seems likely the Mossad has more pressing issues on its plate than to get involved in the sad and sordid tale of another hooker who offed one of her clients in the US. :shrug:

[The abyss]

14. Strangulation is – odd.

Now bludgeoned, stabbed, shot, even chainsawed make sense.

But strangled? To actually strangle another human, either by hand or ligature, is a very close personal attack.

Odd story.

[chatnoir]

16. Police fear young lady may have murdered Holocaust survivor Guido Felix Brinkmann

BY Alison Gendar, Kerry Burke and Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Updated Friday, July 31st 2009, 4:14 PM



Holocaust survivor Felix Brinkmann at his 90th birthday party in 2008


Felix Brinkmann was 90, but he still had an eye for the ladies - and cops suspect one might have helped strangle him.

"He was very charming" and still "sexually active," his son, Rick, told the Daily News Friday. "It was a natural part of his being."

He said his dad, a Holocaust survivor with a number from Auschwitz tattooed on one arm, also could have been done in by a prostitute bent on robbery.

Investigators are probing whether the woman that Brinkmann let into his E. 65th St. apartment on Wednesday - accompanied by an unknown man - was someone he met at the Bronx building he managed for years, sources said.

"He was the mayor of Southern Boulevard," said lawyer Bruno Bianci, 49. "He was always a dapper dresser. He always had a girlfriend who was younger than him."

More at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/31/2009-07-31_cops_seek_bronx_man_for_questioning_in_.html

[DavidDvorkin]

21. Well, maybe not really a "lady"!

[drrick]

24. Felix Brinkman, My Father

Hi, I am Rick Brinkman, the son of Felix Brinkman. The facts of my father's life and survival of concentration camps that is being reported by news sources is inaccurate and understated. It is much more incredible and miraculous.

I've spent the last few years recording my parents stories of survival on video and audio.

Visit http://rickbrinkman.com/blog
For stories of survival, photos, and video.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

25. May your father rest in peace. I am very sorry for your loss, drrick.

[Hawkeye-X]

17. As a grandson of a Holocaust survivor

I find this distasteful that someone would strangle a survivor - for WHAT?

My grandfather passed away 9 years ago last week.

I still miss him (and I live in his old house)

Hawkeye-X

[zonkers]

18. Brinkman was owner of Adam's Apple an early, famous NY disco, (VIDEO!) known for

its singles scene. I think the place that was memorialized in Looking For Mr. Goodbar
Here is a cable TV commercial for it from the 70s....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3047178818002272021&ei=kmZ0Soq6BoyUqAOl7pj0Cg&q=adams+apple++dfisco&hl=en

[incapsulated]

19. He was a ladies man, as well, and that may be cause

Felix Brinkmann was 90, but he still had an eye for the ladies - and cops suspect one might have helped strangle him.

"He was very charming" and still "sexually active," his son, Rick, told the Daily News Friday. "It was a natural part of his being."

He said his dad, a Holocaust survivor with a number from Auschwitz tattooed on one arm, also could have been done in by a prostitute bent on robbery.

Investigators are probing whether the woman that Brinkmann let into his E. 65th St. apartment on Wednesday - accompanied by an unknown man - was someone he met at the Bronx building he managed for years, sources said.

"He was the mayor of Southern Boulevard," said lawyer Bruno Bianci, 49. "He was always a dapper dresser. He always had a girlfriend who was younger than him."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/07/31/2009-07-31_cops_seek_bronx_man_for_questioning_in_.html#ixzz0Mwtb0NLZ

He also managed the Audubon Theatre.

Can't say he didn't live a full life.

[SCRUBDASHRUB]

26. No one deserves this to happen to him/her. Such an awful story.