[1] Erber was an ethnic German born Josef Houstek in Ottendorf, Czech Republic, on October 16, 1897.
[5] There, he was responsible for identifying which incoming detainees should be kept alive and which should be sent to the gas chambers.
He was released on December 25, 1947, after which he worked at a spinning mill in Hof, Bavaria for 15 years.
He was tried at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials where he earned the nickname "the horror of Birkenau.
"[9] Erber claimed to be nothing more than a clerk at Auschwitz who had no authority, merely counting the number of arrivals without deciding their fate.