My 96 Year Old Mother

Today, on this day of remembrance for the Fallen of our Israel, my mother turns 96. Born in Beeregsasz in Hungary/Czechia/Romania/Ukraine, half-orphaned in her teens, she moved to Budapest with her father and brother, just in time to face removal to the Ghetto. At 17, wearing the yellow star, she […]

Chaim Rafael

Approximately 1.5 million children were murdered during the Holocaust. Chaim Rafael Gertel z”l was one of those children. Chaim Rafael was born in Hrubieszów, Poland. When the Germans declared that the town was to be Judenrein (“clean of Jews”) in October 1942, Chaim and his mother went into hiding along […]

Matilda and Samuel Gertel

Meet Holocaust survivors Matilda and Samuel Gertel. Born in Uściług, Poland (now Ukraine), Matilda (née Topole) was just a teenager when the war broke out. When the Nazis invaded, she immediately ran home only to find that her father had been killed as an example to others. Matilda, along with […]

Rabbi Lau

78 years ago today, April 11, 1945, the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated by American forces. Pictured are survivors from Buchenwald at the Haifa Port on the way to the Atlit Detention Camp (July, 1945). The little boy holding the flag is Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, former Chief Rabbi of […]

Samuel Beller

Holocaust survivor Samuel Beller was born in 1927 in the Polish town of Oświęcim, also known as the location of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was in several slave labor camps, ghettos, and sent on a death march before being liberated by American troops. Samuel was the only member of […]

Gene Meisner

Happy 100th Birthday to Holocaust survivor Gene Meisner! Born in Poland on July 21, 1920, Gene Sadorkiewicz Meisner survived the Łódź Ghetto and multiple concentration camps, including Ravensbrück. After the war, she was miraculously reunited with her husband Sam and the two made their way to the United States. Gene […]