Elsa Hirsch and Moshe-Walter Schlesinger got married on the morning of 2 September 1940, in the German-occupied city of Brno, the Czech lands. The same day, Moshe's 26th birthday, Moshe left Brno for Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Elsa intended to follow him some two weeks later. The couple believed that their marriage would entitle Elsa to an exit permit, and that she'd be able to join her husband in Eretz Israel.
Moshe-Walter Schlesinger was born in 1914 in Brno, to Valeria (née Weissman) and Otto Schlesinger. He had two younger brothers, Hanan (Elhanan)-Hans (b. 1920) and Aharon-Rudy (b. 1925). Otto, a bookkeeper at a merchant bank, died in 1930, and Valeria later married David Zwicker.
The Germans occupied the Czech lands on 15 March 1939. The following day, Hitler declared the Czech lands a protectorate of Germany, and the Germans renamed it the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, after the German terms for its territories. A few days after Germany's entry into the Czech lands, some 300 Jews were arrested in Brno and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Local fascists persecuted the Jews with the authorization of the Germans. The Jews were robbed of their rights and property, and their movement was restricted. They were banned from economic life and from the public arena, and were sent to pave the roads, work in the forests and in agriculture, and assigned to other menial tasks. Moshe was sent to a labor camp and worked in a quarry. This devastating blow to the Jews led Moshe and his brothers to plan their departure from the Protectorate and their immigration to Eretz Israel.
On his wedding day, Moshe left Brno with his two brothers - Hanan, who was a member of Beitar, and Aharon, who was traveling through the Youth Aliya – for Eretz Israel. They did not have the requisite Certificates (entry permits to Eretz Israel). In the diary that Moshe kept from the day of his departure, he wrote:
2 September [1940]
Where shall I begin? These are the most exciting days of my life. Birthday, wedding and emigration… At 7:45 this morning, Elsa and I prepared ourselves for the wedding. We got married at 11 AM at the registry office, and then went straight home. We packed quickly: I had to be at the train station at 12:00. The parting from Elsa was the hardest thing I have ever experienced…
3 September
I am counting the hours and minutes since my wedding, and my heart contracts, but at least I know that I have something worth fighting for.
Moshe, Hanan and Aharon went aboard the Ma'apilim (illegal immigrants) ship "Milos", which left Tulcea port in Romania with some 700 passengers from the Protectorate and Vienna. In a letter that Valeria wrote to her sons from Brno on 28 September 1940, as they made their way to Eretz Israel, she wrote:
My beloved children. I wait to hear from you every day… Waltinko [Walter-Moshe], your light-colored trousers stayed here, and Hansel [Hans-Hanan], also your shoes and warm trousers. Everything moved too fast, and it's simply too much for me… Stay well, try to write. Kissing you and sending you blessings with all my heart, your mother.
The "Milos" reached Haifa on 4 November 1940, and was intercepted by the British. The passengers were slated for deportation to the island of Mauritius, and were sent aboard the "Patria" with other Ma'apilim. In an effort to prevent the deportation, Haganah members sabotaged the ship. The resulting explosion caused more damage than expected. Due to the rickety state of the ship, a large hole opened up, water gushed in, and on 25 November, the ship sank. Approximately 200 of the 1,800 passengers drowned, together with some 50 British policemen and seamen. Moshe, Hanan and Aharon managed to reach the shore, and were detained in Atlit.
Elsa remained in Brno, not succeeding in obtaining an exit permit. On 2 May 1941, she gave birth to a son, Felix Gideon. Elsa and Moshe's mother Valeria continued to correspond with Moshe via the Red Cross. On 9 October 1941, Valeria sent a few words from Brno to Eretz Israel: "Everyone is well. We are happy. Felix weighs 8 kg. Elsa is well. We are together every day… We think about you all the time." In late October 1941, Elsa sent a short message to Moshe: "Felix becomes cuter each day. We will see each other soon, many kisses, Elsa." On a draft preserved on a scrap of paper, Moshe wrote to his wife and son:
I am proud of our Felix. I follow his development as compared to my friends' children. Kisses to Mother… Alone, without you there is no hope… I have not forgotten you and Felix for even one second. Kisses to you and Felix.
In October 1941, after being imprisoned for about one year, Moshe and Hanan were released from Atlit. Aharon had been released several months earlier.
In September 1941, the Jews in the occupied Czech lands (the Protectorate) were ordered to wear the Yellow Star on their clothing, and in October, the mass deportations to the East and to the Terezin ghetto (a transit stop prior to deportation eastward) began. On 29 March 1942, a deportation train left Brno to the Terezin ghetto; Valeria and her husband David were amongst the deportees. About six months later, on 15 October 1942, they were both sent to their deaths in the Treblinka extermination camp.
Moshe tried to locate his wife and son even before the war's end. In a letter he sent to London in July 1944, he wrote:
I would be most grateful to receive any information about my wife, Elsa Schlesinger née Hirsch, born on 8 February 1908 in Ledince, the Czech lands, and my son Felix Gideon. Are they in Birkenau or another concentration camp? The last letter from my wife arrived in late March 1942. Her address: 61 Pressburger Street, Brno, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Moshe discovered the shattering truth after the war. His wife Elsa and their son Felix were deported from Brno to the Terezin ghetto on 31 March 1942. Felix died in the ghetto on 8 August, age 15 months. On 26 January 1943, Elsa was deported from Terezin to Auschwitz, and murdered.
Moshe remarried and settled in Kiryat Haim. He later moved to Nahariya and became a farmer.
In 1999, Moshe's daughter, Elisheva Shafir Schlesinger, submitted Pages of Testimony to Yad Vashem in memory of her grandmother Valeria, her father's first wife Elsa and their little son Felix Gideon, and other relatives. In 2012 and 2014, letters, documents and photographs documenting the fate of Elsa Schlesinger and her son Felix were donated to Yad Vashem as part of the national project, "Gathering the Fragments", some of which are displayed here.
![Draft of a letter that Moshe Schlesinger wrote to his wife Elsa and their son Felix: "I haven't forgotten you and Felix for even one second."](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/3-00008.jpg "Draft of a letter that Moshe Schlesinger wrote to his wife Elsa and their son Felix: "I haven't forgotten you and Felix for even one second."")
