Career
He became an inmate of several Nazi forced labor and concentration camps and an eye witness to the Holocaust in Poland. After the war, Donat emigrated with his family to the United States, settling in New York City, and went on to write about his wartime experiences. He wrote Jewish Resistance (1964), Holocaust Kingdom (1965), and The Death Camp Treblinka: a documentary (1979), a series of memoirs devoted to these traumatic events.
Alexander Donat was born Michał Berg in the Polish capital Warsaw, where he lived until World World War World War II He was a publisher of a daily newspaper there, had married, and became a father in 1937 to a son William.
Following the Nazi German invasion of Poland Berg (Donat) and his family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. From there, he was deported to several forced labor and concentration camps including Majdanek.
Michał Berg have met a prisoner whose real name was Alexander Donat at Vaihingen concentration camp. They secretly agreed to switch their names for a prisoner transport.
Soon thereafter the real Alexander Donat was murdered.
Berg decided to keep Donat"s name as his own forever. Donat feared that, "should the Nazis be victorious, "future generations will pay trubute to them"" similar to Homeric Greek crusaders. The Donats went to the United States and opened a printing business.
In 1977 Donat helped start "The Holocaust Library", a non-profit program to launch books that condemn persecution and tell of the personal experiences of the Jews during the Second World War.
He died of a lung disease at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He died on November 5, 2009.