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Auschwitz Survivor Brutally Murdered

90-year-old ran one of NYC’s hottest discos

by
Marc Tracy
July 31, 2009

Sad and horrifying news: a 90-year-old man named Guido Brinkmann who survived Auschwitz (and even met his wife there), and then went on to run one of New York City’s hottest discos, was found bludgeoned to death in his New York apartment yesterday. His club, Adam’s Apple, was integral to the popularization of “The Hustle“ (as in, do it!) in the late 1970s. The irony in Brinkmann’s life trajectory was not lost on a friend, who told the New York Daily News, “They pulled him off the extermination line four times. He survived and these creeps killed him.” (Police don’t yet know who “these creeps“ are—the murder appeared to be part of a robbery.) While people have certainly been treated to better deaths, at least we can be thankful for the six post-Auschwitz decades that Brinkmann was lucky—the word seems odd in this context, but it is apt—to get.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.