Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers granted Spanish nationality on Tuesday to Peter René Pérez, 89 years old, a Holocaust survivor and, in his own words, the “last Sephardic of the Vienna community”.
According to the Official State Gazette (BOE) published on Wednesday, Spanish nationality by letter of nature has been granted to him by King Felipe VI at the proposal of the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, and “in view of the exceptional circumstances that concur with Mr. Peter René Pérez”.
Peter René Pérez, born in Vienna in 1936 and son of a Bulgarian Sephardic and an Austrian Catholic, was part of the Sephardic Jewish community of the Austrian capital, which in those years was made up of a thousand people. In 1938, his father and uncle managed to flee to Paris in the face of harassment by the Gestapo. Peter René’s brother was later able to escape in a convoy for Jewish children, and Peter René and his mother managed to leave Vienna in 1939 after obtaining a passport to reach Paris.
However, after the German offensive in France, Peter René Pérez and his parents fled Paris and were captured and interned in 1941 (when he was only five years old) in the Rivesaltes camp, at the foot of the Pyrenees.
In this camp, created by Vichy France to confine “undesirable foreigners” who could represent a “potential danger” to the country, he shared internment with prisoners of gypsy ethnicity and numerous Spanish republicans who would later save his life. In Rivesaltes, Peter René learned Spanish and used fandangos to communicate with the gypsy and Spanish prisoners and, in this way, find out who was still alive.
In September 1942, after the Nazis had taken over the south of France and cleared the Rivesaltes camp for military use, Peter René and his family were spared deportation to the Auschwitz extermination camp (and therefore almost certain death) by Spanish prisoners who falsified their papers so that they could work and live in the La Caunette mine. They remained in this mine until its closure in 1948, when they returned to Vienna, where Peter René Pérez still resides today.
On 27 January 2024, Peter René Pérez gave his testimony in the Spanish Senate on the occasion of the State Act for the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity, in which he recalled the persecution he suffered in his childhood and stated that, as “the last Sephardic Jew in the Vienna community”, he was very happy to return to Spain.
At the same time, in an interview with the Europa Press agency, Pérez defended the “two-state solution” (Israel and Palestine) to end the war in the Middle East, but warned that this measure would not guarantee that “something like October 7” would not happen again, referring to the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory, which triggered the current Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
A few days later, he was awarded the Civil Merit Commendation by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, for “the courage shown in telling the world about his experience and transmitting a message of peace and brotherhood” and, according to Albares, “in recognition of his bravery, together with that of his entire family and the Sephardic community that managed to flee from Nazi injustice, his courage in telling the world about his experience and transmitting a message of peace and brotherhood and his desire to preserve Ladino as a language of communication.”
