Holocaust Survivors and the State of Israel

Rabbi Sinai Adler was born in 1928 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. In March 1943 he and his family were incarcerated in the Theresienstadt ghetto, and in the summer of 1944 they were deported to Auschwitz, where his parents were murdered. From Auschwitz Sinai Adler was sent to the Mauthausen and Gunskirchen camps. In 1945 Adler immigrated to Eretz Israel and studied in the Hebron Talmudic Academy in Jerusalem. After serving as the Chief Rabbi of Ashdod, Rabbi Adler taught at a Rabbinical Teachers Institute near Jerusalem.

Sinai Adler

Dr. Yitzhak Arad (Rudnicki) was born in Święciany, Poland (today Lithuania) in 1926. When World War II broke out, he was living in Warsaw but managed to flee to Święciany with his sister. His parents were murdered in Warsaw. In September 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Jews of his town were taken to killing pits, but Arad managed to escape, and eventually returned to Święciany. He stole German weapons, escaped to the forests and joined the partisans, taking part in ambushes and blowing up trains. In 1945, he immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) on the "Hannah Szenes" ship. During the War of Independence, he fought with the Palmach in Operation Nachshon and Operation Horev, amongst others. Rising to the rank of Brigadier General, and serving as Chief Education Officer, Arad was an IDF combat soldier until the Yom Kippur War. Dr. Yitzhak Arad was the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, and a senior Holocaust research scholar, publishing many academic articles and books.

Yitzhak Arad

Yehudit Arnon was born in 1926 in Komárno, Czechoslovakia. She was deported to Auschwitz with her parents, who were murdered there. Yehudit was assigned to forced labor, during which time she discovered the positive force of dance, and would dance between the bunks of her fellow starving and beaten prisoners. She was sent on a death march to the Friedenberg camp in Moravia, where she was liberated In 1948, Yehudit immigrated to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Ga'aton, where she worked in the field of dance. In 1970, she established the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, and acted as Artistic Director until 1998. In 1998, she received the Israel Prize for her lifelong achievements in education and the performing arts.

Yehudit Arnon

Pinchas Bar-Efrat (formerly Paul Manfred) was born in 1931 in Arnhem, the Netherlands. From October 1942 until the liberation, he hid with his parents and only brother in various hiding places arranged by his father's employer. In 1947, Pinchas immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) with the Youth Aliyah. He completed a BA in economics and political science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and then worked at the Finance Ministry and the Housing and Development Company. After retiring, he attained an MA and a doctorate on the subject of the Holocaust of the Jews of Holland. In 2016, Yad Vashem published his book, "Denunciation and Rescue: Dutch Society and the Holocaust". Pinchas is a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Pinhas Bar Efrat

Professor Aharon Barak was born in 1936 in Kovno, Lithuania. “I was five years old when I, together with my parents and the rest of the Jews of Kovno in Lithuania - about 29,000 men, women, children, and infants- entered the Kovno ghetto.” After surviving the war and coming to Israel, Barak eventually studied law at the Hebrew University. He became Dean of the Faculty of Law at Hebrew University. At age 39, in 1975, he was awarded the Israel Prize for Legal Studies. He then served as legal advisor to the government and participated in the 1978 peace negotiations with Egypt. Appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel in 1978, Barak served on the court for 28 years including as Chief Justice during his last 11 years on the bench.
For more information >>>

Aharon Barak

Professor Walter Zwi Bacharach was born in 1928 in Hanau, Germany. In 1938, Zwi and his family fled to Holland, and in January 1942, they were deported to the Westerbork transit camp. From there they were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto and then to Auschwitz. Zwi and his brother survived the Holocaust and were liberated by American soldiers. In 1945, Zwi immigrated to Eretz Israel and joined the religious Kibbutz Be’erot Yitzchak in the Negev region. Zwi was a professor in the General History Department at Bar-Ilan University and became one of the leading research scholars in the fields of the Holocaust and antisemitism. He was a researcher at Yad Vashem and president of the Leo Baeck Institute.
For more information >>>

Walter Zwi Bacharach

Berthe Badehi was born in France in 1932. She survived the Holocaust in hiding in Savoie region of France, in the house of a local farmer, Marie Massonnat. “She took care of me for 3 years. They were the most important years of my childhood. They are still my family, my Christian family from France. We are not a Jewish or Christian family, but a family all the same,” testified Berthe. On March 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Marie Massonnat as Righteous Among the Nations. Berthe Badehi has volunteered for many years at Yad Vashem, helping the visitors and giving testimony about her experiences during the Holocaust to students and educators from Israel and abroad.

Berthe Badehi

Dr. Nahum Bogner was born in 1933 in Berezhany, Poland (now Ukraine). In 1941 Nahum’s family fled to Pomorzany, where they stayed till November 1942, when they were incarcerated in the Przemyslany ghetto. During an Aktion in the ghetto in December 1942, almost 3000 Jews were caught and deported to the Bełżec extermination camp. Nahum and his parents managed to escape from the train to the forests. Nahum’s father was murdered on May 1943, and his mother was caught in the forest and murdered by Ukrainian nationalists in early January 1944. Bogner immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1947, and in 1951 he joined the IDF. Bogner received his MA and PhD degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Nachum Bogner is a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Nachum Bogner

Ruth Bondy was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1923. In May 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz where she cared for young children who were later murdered in the gas chambers. Her parents perished in the Holocaust.
She immigrated to Israel in 1948 and worked as a journalist for over thirty years and taught Journalism at Tel Aviv University. She was a prolific author and translated over 50 books from Czech to Hebrew. Ruth Bondy was awarded the Buchman Memorial Prize for her lifetime's work, the Sokolov Award for journalism and the Prime Minister's prize for Hebrew literature.
For more information >>>

Ruth Bondy

Avraham Carmi was born in 1928 in Leżajsk, Poland. He hid with his mother in the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw during the first years of the German occupation, 1939-1942. In the summer of 1942, Avraham, his mother and uncle moved to the ghetto and were later arrested during the ghetto uprising. Avraham’s mother was murdered in Majdanek, while he and his uncle were sent to the Budzyń labor camp. During 1944-45 he was deported to the Radom, Dautmergen and Saint Cyprien camps. After the war Avraham Carmi immigrated to Israel. He was one of the founders of Kibbutz Masu'ot Yitzhak, and studied history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Avraham Carmi has volunteered for many years at Yad Vashem, giving testimony about his experiences during the Holocaust to students and educators from Israel and abroad.

Avraham Carmi

Nathan Diament grew up in Belgium, his parents having emigrated from Poland in the 1930s. The majority of his mother’s family perished in the Holocaust. Nathan’s family spent most of the war years in hiding: his parents in an attic apartment in Brussels with a non-Jewish family, his older brother in a pension for Jewish children, he and his younger brother also with non-Jewish families. After the war these families were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The family was reunited and in 1949 immigrated to Israel. Nathan Diament made a career in administration and business and raised a family. Since his retirement Diament has been devoting his life to the restoration of the art works of his uncle, Holocaust survivor J.D. Kirszenbaum. Nathan Diament is a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Photo by Dudu Bachar, "Haaretz". Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved ©

Nathan Diament

Dr. Gila Fatran (née Goldstein), her brother Avraham, his wife and their younger son survived the Holocaust in hiding. All her other family members perished in the Holocaust. Born in 1929 in Michalovce, Slovakia, Gila and her family fled to Budapest in 1943 but following the German occupation of Hungary in 1944, they returned to Žilina, Slovakia. In 1949 Gila immigrated to Israel. She studied at the Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem Universities, worked as a teacher for over 30 years and has published extensively on Holocaust history and the history of Slovak Jewry. Gila Fatran is a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Gila Fatran

Henri Friedlander was born in France in 1904 and survived the war hiding in the home he shared with his German wife, Maria Helena Bruhn in Wassenaar, South Holland. Henri was born in France and worked in Holland as a typographer and graphic designer. After the war Maria and Henri Friedlander settled in Israel. Henri worked as a typographer and graphic designer. He taught at the Hadassah-Brandeis Apprentice School of Printing and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. Henri Friedlander designed the popular Hebrew typeface Hadassa over three decades, completing his oeuvre in 1958. In 1971 Henri Friedlander was awarded the Guttenberg Prize – typography’s highest award.

Henry Friedlander

Kariel Gardosh (known as Dosh) was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1921. In 1941, following the completion of his high school studies, he was drafted into a forced-labor battalion and sent to mine copper. His father and the rest of his family were sent to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. In 1946, he immigrated to France, where he studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1948, he immigrated to Israel and joined the Israeli press as a graphic designer and caricaturist. Dosh (Kariel Gardosh) created “Srulik” in 1952, as a symbol of the young state. Srulik’s image was embraced by all, and he was chosen as the representative icon of the state on its 10th anniversary. Although Israeli society has undergone large transformations throughout the decades since Srulik was created, the image of Srulik is etched into the Israeli collective memory until this very day.

Kariel Gardosh

Hannah-Elizabeth (Elisheva) Goslar Pick was born in 1928 in Berlin. In 1933, her family moved to England and then to Amsterdam, where she became friends with Anne Frank. After the German occupation, the two girls moved to a school for Jews only. In October 1942, Hannah's mother died in childbirth as did her baby brother. Hannah halted her studies in order to take care of her younger sister Gaby. In June 1943, Hannah and her family were arrested and sent to the Westerbork camp. Hannah and her sister were separated from their father and sent to the camp orphanage, where Hannah helped look after the toddlers until they were deported to their deaths. In 1944, Hannah, her father and sister were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp. Hannah contracted jaundice and was hospitalized in isolation. In April 1945, she was sent on the "Lost Train" and liberated by the Red Army. She reached Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) in 1947. She studied nursing, became a nurse at Bikur Holim hospital and worked in immigrant camps and settlements on behalf of the Health Ministry. Dedicated to the cause of Holocaust remembrance, Hannah has shared with hundreds her story, including details about her friendship with Anne Frank.

Hannah Goslar

Michael (Miki) Goldman-Gilad was born in Katowice, Poland, in 1925. When World War II broke out, he fled with his family to Przemysl, and was incarcerated in the Szebnie camp. In November 1943, he was deported to Auschwitz and sent to Birkenau, and from there to Buna-Monowitz. In January 1945, he was forced on a death march, but escaped and hid until his liberation. In February he enlisted in the Red Army and was wounded in battle. In 1947, he boarded the "Hatikva" ship to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine), but was apprehended and sent to a detention camp in Cyprus. He immigrated to Israel after the establishment of the State. In 1960, Miki Gilad was attached as an Investigation Officer to Bureau 06 – a special unit set up within the police to conduct the investigation of Adolf Eichmann. He also served as personal aid to Attorney General Gideon Hausner, who headed Eichmann's prosecution. He was sent by the Jewish Agency to Latin America, and rose to the senior ranks of the Jewish Agency. Today, he is a member of the Yad Vashem Council and a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Michael (Miki) Goldman-Gilad

Daniel Gold was born in Siauliai, Lithuania in 1937. In 1941, the Germans occupied Lithuania. The Jews of Siauliai, after repeated massacres that annihilated thousands of its population, were enclosed in a ghetto. In the summer of 1944, a few days before the liquidation of the ghetto and the dispatch of all survivors to concentration camps, his aunt and uncle escaped, taking with them their two sons, a female cousin and Daniel. They found refuge with a Lithuanian peasant family, where they lived in hiding under extremely cramped conditions – only able to lay on the ground, not even able to sit upright and without access to food during daylight hours. They lived like this until their liberation by the Russian army, four months later, in the late fall of 1944.

Daniel Gold

Professor Israel Gutman, born in 1923, fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and survived Majdanek and Auschwitz. In 1961 he testified at the Eichmann Trial. He was born in Warsaw. His parents and older sister perished in the ghetto, and his younger sister was deported to Treblinka together with the other children from Janusz Korczak’s orphanage. From Warsaw, Gutman was taken to Majdanek, and from there to Auschwitz. In May 1945 he was sent on a death march to Mauthausen. Gutman survived the Holocaust and immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1946. Upon receiving his MA and PhD degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he later headed the University’s Department for the Study of Contemporary Jewry. Professor Gutman was the Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem and Deputy Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council. He published many scholarly works on the Holocaust and was a leading and trailblazing historian of the Holocaust in Israel and abroad.
For more information >>>

Israel Gutman

Moshe Ha-Elion was born in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1925. In April 1943, Ha-Elion was deported with his mother and sister to Auschwitz. He was liberated by the Americans in Austria after being forced on two death marches and imprisoned in several concentration camps. In 1946 he made Aliyah on the "Josiah Wedgewood" illegal immigrant ship. He served in the IDF for 20 years and then worked in the security service. He has been active in several Holocaust commemoration and survivor welfare organizations, and writes poetry and prose in Ladino.

Moshe Ha-Elion

Behor Dadosh (later Beni Harel) was born in 1936 in Tripoli, Libya to Yosef and Rachel Dadosh. He had a younger brother and sister, Moshe and Wassina.
In February 1941, the Germans entered Tripoli, and Jewish men were rounded up and sent to forced labor camps in the desert, including Jado. Yosef was also captured, but managed to escape.
One Friday evening in April 1941, the family home was bombed. Beni's brother and sister were killed; he and his mother were injured. They were evacuated in a donkey cart and eventually reached the village of Zawia, where they were housed in a stable. During one of the bombings, the stable was hit, and Rachel burned to death before Beni's eyes.
Beni moved to his grandparent's house in Tripoli. With the German surrender in Tripoli in January 1943, Yosef returned to the city. He remarried and had another 13 children.
In 1949, the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem. Beni worked in construction, helping to build several of Jerusalem's iconic buildings, including the Knesset. Beni and Jacqueline have four children and 15 grandchildren.
For more information >>>

Beni Harel

Avraham Hershko was born in 1937 in Karcag, Hungary. During the war his family was imprisoned in the Karcag and later – Szolnok ghettos. After the liquidation of the ghetto, they were deported to the concentration camp in Austria. Avraham and his parents survived the Holocaust and in 1950 the family immigrated to Israel. He studied medicine at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and served as a physician in the IDF. In 1969 he completed his doctorate in biochemistry. His discoveries have won him many prestigious awards, including the Israel Prize (1994) and Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2004, along with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose).

Avram Hershko

Szymon Israeli-Posesorski was born in Warsaw in 1932. When the Germans invaded Poland, he was smuggled into Soviet territory. With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was incarcerated in the Stolpce ghetto. After most of the ghetto's Jews were murdered, Shimon was smuggled into a labor camp, from which he escaped to the forests and joined a group of partisans led by his brother. Shimon survived the Holocaust, as did his sister Henia. They were the sole survivors of the family. In 1946, Shimon immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) and changed his family name to Israeli, after his father who was murdered in the Holocaust. He performed at the Bimah and Cameri theaters, and established the "Three Strings" trio, which earned international acclaim under the name "Arava Trio". A national and international singer, actor and director, Israeli established a youth theater and a chamber opera for new immigrants. He received the Israel Theater Academy's Life Achievement Award.

Szymon Israeli

Yehudith Kleinman was born in Venice, Italy, in 1938. Her mother, Anna Haselnuss, was murdered in Auschwitz at the age of 29 and her grandmother, Lea Ellert, was 62 when she was murdered. The fate of Kleinman's father, Micha, remains unknown. In January 1944, when she was five years old, a Christian neighbor brought her to a convent in Milan to hide her from the Nazis. At the end of the war, two Shlichim (emissaries) from Eretz Israel took her out of the convent and brought her to the Selvino Jewish boarding home. A few months later, she sailed to Eretz Israel and was placed in an orphanage for child Holocaust survivors.

Yehudith Kleinman

Ralph Klein was born in Berlin, but his family moved to Budapest before World War II. His father was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Ralph, his mother, sister and brother survived the Holocaust thanks to Raoul Wallenberg, Righteous Among the Nations, who organized temporary Swedish protective passports. In 1951, he immigrated to Israel along with his mother, and began to play on the @maccabitlv basketball team and on the national team. In 1964, he was appointed coach to the Hapoel teams nationwide. In 1970, he returned to the Maccabi Tel-Aviv basketball team, this time as coach. His career highlight was in 1977, when Maccabi Tel-Aviv beat CSKA Moscow. He is the recipient of the 2006 Israel Prize in sports.

Ralph Klein

Noah Klieger was born in 1926 in Strasbourg, France. During the years 1942-1945 he was a prisoner at the camps of Malines, Auschwitz, Dora-Mittelbau and Ravensbrück. On 29 April 1945, Noah was liberated at Ravensbrück and pursued a career in journalism. In the course of his work, he covered the trials of Nazi war criminals in Belgium, France, Germany and Israel. Noah has written extensively on Holocaust-related topics, including Nazi war crimes trials and Holocaust survivors in Israel. Noah Klieger also was the president of the basketball club Maccabi Tel Aviv (1951 - 1968) and chairman of the FIBA's media council. In 2010 he was awarded FIBA Order of Merit, and in 2012 became a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur. In 2015, Noah Klieger was inducted into FIBA Hall of Fame as a contributor.
Photo @ Harel Rinzler

Noah Klieger

Paul Kor (Kornowski) was born in Paris. Following the German occupation the family left Paris for the country in 1941. His father was caught while attempting to return to the city and was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Kor and his mother fled to the southern unoccupied zone of France under the Vichy regime. After painting protest graffiti he was put on the wanted list and therefore was smuggled with his brother to Switzerland. After the war he studied art in Geneva, and later at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He immigrated to Israel in 1948 and became a leading graphic designer who designed posters, stamps and paper currency. He was awarded international recognition for his graphic designs and won many prizes. Kor became widely known for the many Hebrew children’s books that he wrote and illustrated.

Paul Kor

Rabbi Israel Meir Lau was born in 1937 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland. At the age of eight he was liberated in Buchenwald, together with his older brother Naphtali, by American forces. In the summer of 1945 Israel and Naphtali came to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). After years of study and filling various rabbinic posts, Israel was appointed chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo and later the Chief Rabbi of Israel. Rabbi Lau has intensely dealt with Holocaust memory and commemoration through his worldwide speeches and appearances, as well as in his writings. In 2005 Rabbi Lau received the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Rabbi Lau is the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council.
For more information >>>

Israel Meir Lau

Naphtali Lau-Lavie was born in 1926 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland. When most of the town's Jews were deported to Treblinka, Naphtali and his younger brother Israel Meir Lau (later Chief Rabbi of Israel and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council) were deported to a forced labor camp in Czestochowa, and from there to Buchenwald, where they were liberated in 1945. "For some three years, I was this child's father and mother, guardian and bodyguard. It would seem that it was my father's last testament and the mission that he entrusted me with - to bring my younger brother to safety, and to ensure through him the continuity of our Rabbinic family dynasty – that kept me alive and gave me the confidence to keep fighting for our survival." Naphtali reached Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) and joined the "Hagganah". After the establishment of the State of Israel, he was a military correspondent, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Israeli Consul in New York, and Deputy Chairman of the World Jewish Restitution Organization. He served as a member of the Yad Vashem Council, and was the recipient of the Yakir Yerushalayim award in 2003.

Naphtali Lau-Lavie

Dr. Ehud Loeb was born in 1934 in Buehl, Germany. In October 1940 his family was deported to the Gurs camp in France. Ehud Loeb's mother and father were murdered in Auschwitz. In February 1941 the OSE managed to remove children from the camp, including Ehud, and he survived the Holocaust as a child in hiding. After the war he discovered that his mother and father had been deported to Auschwitz. They were both murdered, as was the majority of his family. Immigrating to Israel after the war, he became an art historian and was the registrar of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for 32 years. He lectured on the history of art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for some 20 years. Dr. Ehud Loeb volunteered at Yad Vashem for many years giving testimony about his experiences during the Holocaust to hundreds of students and educators from Israel and abroad.
For more information >>>
Photo © Claudine Weinstein

Ehud Loeb

Dov Matz was born in 1928 in Scheveningen (today The Hague), The Netherlands. When the Germans began to invade in the summer of 1942, Dov's parents hid him and his brother in separate places, while they hid with his little sister. His parents and sister were caught, deported to Sobibor and murdered. Dov survived for two-and-a-half years by wandering from hiding place to hiding place, sometimes together with his brother. After the liberation, Dov returned to his studies, and joined a Zionist youth movement, becoming a movement counsellor. After graduating from high school in 1950, Dov immigrated to Israel. He studied classical culture in the Hebrew University,and taught in many schools. He organized, directed and taught core studies courses for immigrant IDF soldiers, and was a school principle and teacher. Dov was a member of the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.

Dov Matz

Esther Miron was born in Janoshaza in western Hungary. In May 1944, she was deported to the Children’s Block in Auschwitz. “I lost my mother and sister in Auschwitz,” she recalls. “I underwent 17 selections by Mengele. He took my sister away from me during the ninth one.”
In the fall of 1944, Esther was transferred to Birkenau. In November 1944, she was sent to Lenzing, a sub-camp of Mauthausen in Austria. Esther was finally liberated by the US Army. She immigrated to Eretz Israel, reaching its shores in April 1948. After studying the history of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Esther worked in the Central Zionist Archives researching the history of the leadership of the Zionist movement and Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. She collected and edited Holocaust-era documents and photographs of the Jews of Hungary and has published extensively and lectured about the Holocaust, as well as the history of Zionism.

Esther Miron

Efraim Mol was born in 1938 in Brussels, Belgium, to Reuven Yoel and Bella, Polish immigrants. In September 1942, they fled to France intending to escape to Switzerland, but were arrested by the Gestapo. Efraim was separated from his mother and father, who were later murdered in Auschwitz. After being hidden in a convent and a Jewish orphanage, he was adopted by the Weil family. When danger loomed, Lucie Cartier, an acquaintance of his adoptive parents, hid the family until liberation.
In the late 1950s, Efraim immigrated to Israel. He became a sapper in the IDF combat reserves, where he became drawn to Chabad Hassidism. He worked in a defense industries factory and later became a scribe. Efraim and Rachel have four children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
For more information >>>

Efraim Mol

Zipora Nahir was born in 1930 in Hrubieszów, Poland. Zipora's family was forced to move to the ghetto in late 1940. They were able to avoid the deportations to Sobibior in the summer of 1942 by hiding in a tiny room concealed by a closet.
In September 1943, the family was sent to the Bedzin concentration camp and then in May 1944 the family was sent to Majdanek. After Majdanek was abandoned in July 1944, Zipora was separated from her parents and sister but eventually the family was reunited and returned to Hrubieszów. Zipora immigrated to Israel in 1950 and helped to found Kibbutz Harel.
For years, she worked as a lab assistant and a librarian, and translated survivor testimony for Yad Vashem. She serves on the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Zipora Nahir

Dan Pagis was born in Bukovina, Romania in 1930. His early years were spent in a Nazi concentration camp in the Ukraine, formerly in Romania, from where he escaped in 1944. He immigrated to pre-state Israel in 1946, earned his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he later taught Medieval Hebrew literature. He became one of the most vibrant voices in modern Israeli poetry. His references to the Holocaust are sometimes oblique, filtered through his use of biblical or mystical images.

Dan Pagis

Professor Kalman Perk was born in 1930 in Kovno, Lithuania. In 1944, while being deported to the camps with his family, Kalman’s father was able to throw him from the train. His last words to his son were: “Kalman, du zolst zein a mentsch” (Kalman, be a good person). Kalman survived and arrived in Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) in 1945. After completing his studies to become a veterinarian, Kalman founded the Department of Anatomy and Physiology and the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has served as the Honorary Director of the School of Veterinary Medicine at Hebrew University and a member of the Council for Nutrition of the Agricultural and Rural Development Ministry.
For more information >>>

Kalman Perk

Rena Quint was born in Piotrków, Poland in 1935. During the war, she was interned in the ghetto in Piotrków and put to work in a slave labor camp nearby. Quint was liberated from Bergen Belsen by the British Army, the sole survivor of her entire family. After the war, she was moved to a DP camp and then to a hospital in Sweden. She immigrated to the US in 1946 and made moved to Israel in 1984, together with her husband and four children. Rena has volunteered at Yad Vashem for many years sharing her story with hundreds of visitors from around the world.

Rena Quint

Tibi Ram was born in 1930 in the Carpathian Mountains and grew up in Hungary. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz with his entire family. After Auschwitz, he spent nine months in the Furshinschtine-Wostegisdorf labor camp. From there, he was sent on a death march to Bergen Belsen, where his father, brother and mother died. After the war, he spent two years recuperating in Sweden. He made aliyah at the beginning of 1948, joined the IDF, and became a member of a kibbutz in the Negev.

Tibi Ram

Dan Reisinger was born in 1934 in Kanjiza, Yugoslavia (today Serbia). During the Holocaust period, Dan was hidden by Serb families. His father and most of his family members were murdered in the Holocaust. In 1949 he immigrated to Israel, where he studied drawing, sculpture and poster design in the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Reisinger's designs include the Distinguished Service ("Mofet"), Courage ("Oz") and Valor ("Gevura") medals, and the El Al logo and corporate identity. Exhibitions of his work have been displayed in the Israel Museum, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and in museums throughout the world. Reisinger taught at the Bezalel Academy and other institutions, and has been a lecturer and judge at professional international forums.

Dan Reisinger

Haim Roet was born in 1932 in Amsterdam. In 1942 the Roets were taken to a transit camp in Amsterdam. Haim’s parents arranged to have him sent to the village of Nieuwlande, where 200 Jewish children were hidden. Haim survived and was reunited with his parents and brothers after the war. Haim and his parents settled in Israel in 1949. Haim Roet initiated the commemorative project, “Unto Every Person There Is a Name,” Public Recitation of Names of Holocaust Victims. Haim then became active in the recognition of Jewish efforts to save other Jews, serving as the Chairman of the Committee for the Recognition of Jews who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
For more information >>>

Haim Roet

Esther Roter was born in 1933 in Torka, Poland (today Ukraine) to parents Mordechai and Leah (Lola) Shein. In 1942, Esther and her parents went into hiding and managed to survive several Aktions in which thousands of the town's Jews were murdered. The Komarnicki farming famly, later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, agreed to hide Esther, but her parents were less fortunate, and in late 1942 they were incarcerated in the Sambor ghetto, where they were murdered. During German raids, Esther was sent into the forest, where she stayed at night until the raid was over. Later on, she was hidden in a pit on the family farm. In the spring of 1944, the area was liberated by the Red Army. Esther immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) with the Youth Aliyah, and joined Kibbutz Merhavia. Dedicated to the cause of Holocaust education and commemoration, Esther has shared her story to groups of IDF soldiers and teenagers from Israel and abroad.

Esther Roter

Shmulik Shilo was born in December 1929 in Łuck, Poland (today Ukraine). Shmulik went into hiding during the war and eventually joined the Polish partisans. He was liberated by the Red Army in 1944. In July 1946, Shmulik attempted to immigrate to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) illegally, but his ship was intercepted by the British, and he was sent to detainment camps in Cyprus. He reached Eretz Israel in December 1946.
With the outbreak of the War of Independence, Shmulik enlisted in the Palmach, and after the war, he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Tze'elim in the Negev. He was a member of the Habimah theater, as well as an early member of the Kibbutz and Be'er Sheva theater groups. In 1983 he founded the Negev theater group, serving as its general manager and artistic director for many years. Shmulik directed many plays, a large percentage of which he also acted in. In 2007, he published his memoirs, in which he wrote about life before the war, his Holocaust experiences, and how they affected his life in Israel.
Shmulik Shilo passed away on 4 October 2011.

Shmuel Shilo

Jacques Stroumsa was born in 1913 Salonika, Greece, the eldest of four children. A talented violinist, he studied electrical engineering in France, and then returned to Greece. He was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and sent to the men's orchestra in Birkenau, where he played the violin for two hours each day, when the prisoners left for work and during public executions. When his engineering expertise was discovered, he was transferred to the Union-Werke munitions factory, where he worked for 18 months.
On 21 January 1945, Jacques was sent on a death march to the camps of Melk, Mauthausen and Gusen. He was liberated at Gusen by the US Army on 8 May 1945, after which he learned that of his whole family, only his younger sister Bella had survived.
Jacques returned to France, married and after the Six Day War, Jacques and his family moved to Israel. He worked for the Jerusalem Municipality and the Foreign Ministry, and after retiring, attained a PHD in electrical engineering from the Technion. He volunteered at Yad Vashem, researching the history of Greek Jewry and telling his story to groups. His memoir, "Violinist in Auschwitz" has been published in 8 languages.

Jacques Stroumza

Marta Wise (née Weiss) was born on 8 October 1934, in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. Her parents were Eugen Yaakov and Margaret Meital Weiss, and she had eight sisters and a brother. During the war, Marta was able to live under an assumed Aryan identity with false papers for a while, but on 8 October 1944, she was arrested and sent to the Sered camp. On 3 November 1944 Marta was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She and her sister Eva, were kept in Mengele’s medical experiments block together with twins and dwarfs. They managed to stay alive there until the liberation. Looking back, she maintains that her survival was largely thanks to pure luck. Marta and Eva were liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945. After the war, Marta moved to Australia, where she became a historian. She emigrated to Israel in 1998, and today lives in Jerusalem. She is a mother of 3 and grandmother of 14. She volunteers as a guide at Yad Vashem.

Marta Wise

Yakob Zim was born in Sosnowiec (Poland) in 1920. Following the German occupation in 1939, he was incarcerated in the ghetto together with his family. In August 1943, his parents and brother Emmanuel were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. In 1945, Jakob and his brother Nathan were sent on a death march from Blechhammer to Buchenwald, where they were later liberated. They immigrated to Israel in 1945. Zim studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and became a graphic designer.

Yakob Zim

Miriam Zohar was born in 1931 in Czernowitz (Romania, now Ukraine). Miriam, her brother Yitzhak and their parents were deported to Transnistria in 1941. When the region was liberated in 1944, the family returned to Czernowitz. Shortly afterwards, her father was imprisoned and deported by the Soviets. In 1949 Miriam, Yitzhak and their mother immigrated to Israel. From 1951, she performed in the Habima Theater. She was married to journalist Arie Gelblum and they have two daughters. Miriam Zohar has volunteered at Yad Vashem for many years, giving testimony about her experiences during the Holocaust to students and educators from Israel and abroad.

Miriam Zohar