Tefillin Bag Belonging to Shraga Klagsbald
Shraga Feivish Klagsbald was born in Trzebinia in 1924. In 1937, when he turned 13, he studied the Jewish laws relating to Tefillin (Phylacteries) and received the bag as a gift on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah.
Shraga was a policeman for the Trzebinia Judenrat, and was later an imate of Plaszów concentration camp. He was sent on a death march, and reached Ebensee forced labor camp in Austria. His brother, Hirsch Zvi Klagsbald, was with Shraga when he perished from exhaustion in Ebensee.
When Shraga’s cousin was interned by the British in Cyprus, he noticed another inmate holding Shraga’s Tefillin bag. The man could not tell him how it had come into his possession, but agreed to give it to Shraga’s cousin who, in turn, gave it to Hirsch Zvi Klagsbald.
Hirsch donated the Tefillin bag to Yad Vashem through Elimelech Gross, Chairman of the Trzebinia Immigrants’ Association, who had studied the laws of Tefillin with Shraga.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection, Gift of Tzvi Klagsbald, Rishon LeZion, Israel
