Lampert, Sylvester (stage name: Heujo Ne'ary)

musician

born: 31.12.1921 in Höchst am Main

died: 25.02.1999 in Wiesbaden

Lampert grew up in Wiesbaden, where his parents had moved to work as showmen and run a movie theater. As a Sinto, he was forbidden to start an apprenticeship as a car mechanic after leaving school due to discrimination by the National Socialists. In 1938, he found a job as a delivery driver at the Wilhelm Becker bakery. Becker made it possible for him to train as a baker, albeit not officially, and he was even able to attend a vocational school. He worked in the bakery until his arrest on March 8, 1943, the day on which the Wiesbaden Sinti were driven into the synagogue by the National Socialists and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau the following day.

Lampert had to perform forced labor in an armaments factory in Auschwitz. When the SS were looking for "strong men" for a "commando" in Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace, Lampert volunteered in the hope of receiving higher food rations. Little did he know that he had been selected for medical experiments on human beings. SS doctors wanted to find out whether or how long the test victims could survive a typhus infection with or without an antidote. Lampert was among those who were injected with an antidote before the test and survived. In spring 1944, he was transferred to forced labor in the Neckarelz subcamp and then to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. In the satellite camp at Munich-Riem airfield, the prisoners had to provisionally repair the taxiways, which had been damaged by ongoing air raids, in the final days of the war. At the end of April, they were driven on by the SS towards Bad Tölz. The SS fled on April 27, 1945, and Lampert and the other survivors of the death march reached American troops on May 1.

In August 1945, Lampert, whose immediate family had been almost wiped out during the Nazi era, returned to Wiesbaden. Here he decided to pursue a life as a musician. Under his stage name "Heujo Ne'ary", he performed as a violinist for over 50 years; he also appeared in smaller film roles such as in "Der letzte Walzer" with Curd Jürgens, in "Käpt'n Bay Bay" with Hans Albers and in "Der Tiger Akbar", where he was seen as a violinist. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, he was honored with the bronze citizen's medal. He was the guardian of the blues and jazz pianist Peter Lancaster.