Forced to work as a doctor to Nazi troops during World War II, Elliott Konis, a Polish Jew, was allowed to survive.
But he suffered immensely, enduring beatings, a skull fracture and starvation. He withstood hearing problems for the rest of his life.
His sons, Allen and Leonard, saved the documents, photos, transcripts and correspondence their father gathered during the war years and in the years that followed, when he was summoned to testify at a war crimes trial in Germany.

The yellowing paperwork and fraying black-and-white photos created a historic treasure trove — one the brothers donated recently to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., a national tribute to the victims of World War II’s genocide.
The gift offers a revealing glimpse into the tragedy, said Robert Tanen, the museum’s southeast regional director.
“This is a rare story,” Tanen said. “A Jewish victim was spared so he could save Nazi soldiers who were gravely wounded in battle. The uniqueness of this collection is so important.”
Allen Konis, 61, lives in Coral Springs, and Leonard Konis, 62, resides in Plantation. Their parents raised them in New York City, where their father practiced family medicine for 34 years after the war.

Elliott Konis was born in 1911 in Vilna, which was then in Poland but is now known as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. He graduated from medical school in 1939, right when the war began. When the Germans occupied the area in 1941, Nazi officials forced the young doctor and his family into the Vilna ghetto, where Jewish community members were imprisoned, starved and killed. The Nazis emptied the ghetto in 1943, sending most of its survivors to concentration camps.
“He described many German soldiers as conscripts not necessarily in agreement with Nazi doctrine, but many had to go along with the war effort or face retribution against their families,” Allen Konis said.
His father’s first wife, Hanna Asgud, a nurse whom he married in 1941, was killed by the Nazis in 1944.
Konis spent time at several concentration camps before his liberation in 1945 at Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau in Germany, where he was fortuitously reunited with his elder brother. Afterward, he worked as a doctor for a United Nations refugee relief agency at the Heidenheim Displaced Persons Camp, where he tended to more than 2,000 war survivors. He immigrated to New York in 1949 and married his second wife, Cora Gablinger, who was born in Israel, in 1960.

In 1965, he received a summons to testify against Nazi war criminals for their roles in committing atrocities at the concentration camps. His testimony helped convict Helmut Schnabel, a commandant of the Vaivara camp in Estonia. Schnabel was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment for his crimes.
Konis died in 1984. A few years ago, his sons realized they knew people who volunteered and raised money for the Holocaust museum and told them about their father’s albums. Their dad had amassed quite a collection from the war, including photos of staff and residents of Heidenheim, identity cards, letters of recommendation and medical documents detailing his concentration camp abuse.
Despite his wartime trauma, his sons described him as having an upbeat view of the world that was tempered by the reality of his mistreatment.
“He was fairly positive, but there was also bitterness,” Allen Konis said. “He swore he would never buy a German car,” showing his still-simmering anger toward the Nazis who tortured him.
During an era when antisemitism is on the rise and many still deny the Holocaust, the brothers said they hope their donation makes an impression.
“We’re so glad to be able to help preserve this history, ” Leonard Konis said, “so that anyone who wants to deny the Holocaust can’t.”
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