Parin arrived in the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in Northern Germany on May 20, 1944.
First constructed as a Prisoner-of-War camp for Belgian and French soldiers, the camp grew rapidly in size after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.
In 1943, the SS opened a special holding camp for what they termed “privileged” Jews, namely, those who could be exchanged for Germans captured by the Allies. Parin’s Swiss citizenship made him a valuable “neutral” Jew since Switzerland maintained political neutrality throughout World War II.
In mid-July of 1944, Italy’s highest Gestapo leader, the German Wilhelm Harster, granted the release of some Swiss nationals from Bergen-Belsen. But this no longer helped Parin, who had died in June.
Anne Frank was also imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen. She had been arrested in her hiding place in Amsterdam and deported in November 1944. By this time, a massive influx of newly arriving prisoners made the camp conditions intolerable. Thousands of surviving Jewish inmates from concentration and labor camps further in the East poured into Bergen-Belsen.
With the rapid advance of the Soviet Army, Nazi Germany forced the remaining Jewish prisoners on death marches during the winter months of 1944 to 1945. The situation was horrible: no sanitation, food, or medical help. A camp designed for 4,000 people held, at its peak in 1945, about 60,000 prisoners. Fifteen-year-old Anne was among those who died of typhus in 1945.
Parin became a pawn of the Third Reich and, ultimately, a victim of the Holocaust. He died on June 9, 1944, far away from the sparkling, cosmopolitan city of his birth, probably from Magenblutung (gastric hemorrhaging).
Even after Parin’s death, archival documents reveal confusion about his identities.
In this postwar document from the 1970s, the painter is listed as “POLLACK, Gino Friedrich od. [or] PARIN.” He is identified as a Swiss national, without a religious affiliation.
The postwar document on the left, dated from October 20, 1955, in the German archive of Arolsen, lists the painter under the name “Parin (Polak), Gino.” It further tells us that he had been sent to the “KL” Bergen-Belsen (KL=Konzentrationslager, concentration camp), but does not provide a date. Here, Parin is listed as “Jewish and Swiss.”
The 1977 document in the center from the German archive in Arolsen is addressed to the editors of an Austrian Biographical Reference Book in Vienna. Note the different spellings of Parin’s name. Under “nationality,” he is listed as “Swiss, Jew.” It further mentions that his arrival in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp is not known, that he died on June 9, 1944, and that no other information about his imprisonment exists in the surviving camp documents.
The document on the right is, according to the handwritten note on top, the original death certificate of Parin from Bergen-Belsen in 1944. It lists him as “Gino Frederico Parin” and as “Catholic, Swiss.” It says that he died there on June 9, 1944, at 11:45 pm. It also mentions his deceased parents, Ludovico and Berta Parin. It further claims that Parin was “not married” and that the cause of death was Magenblutung (gastric hemorrhaging). His death was reported by “Marcellus Neftel, a resident of Bergen- Belsen” who claimed that he had first-hand knowledge of Parin’s passing.
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