Hauptmann Paul Degenhardt
Hauptmann Paul Degenhardt
"The Lord of Life and Death" in Częstochowa

In the spring of 1942, Hauptmann Paul Degenhardt was transferred from Sosnowiec to Częstochowa, where he took command of the Schutzpolizei – the uniformed German Police Force. He remained in that position until the end of 1943, when he was transferred to the staff of the commander of the Ordungspolizei, in Corinth Greece, to combat local partisans.
The police department in Częstochowa, which Degenhardt took over, initially comprised 30-40 German officers. It was reinforced to 50-60 men by the summer of 1942. Over time, the name of this command was changed to the Schutzpolizeikommando (“Protection Police Command”). Its area of responsibility corresponded to that of a comparable agency within the Reich.
During his time in Częstochowa, he oversaw the “resettlements”, from 22nd September until mid October 1942, during which over 40,000 Jews were transported, by train, to their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp.
During each selection for “resettlement”, with his riding crop in hand, Degenhardt would indicate to the left or the right – left meant death, right meant “able to work” and a little longer to live.
Degenhardt also oversaw the liquidation of the “Big Ghetto” and the creation of the “Small Ghetto”. He then also oversaw the liquidation of the “Small Ghetto” and the transfer of remaining survivors into barracks of the slave labour camps.
During that time, he also committed, or ordered to be committed, the murders of individual Jews, for which he stood trial in the Lüneburg District Court (Germany), beginning on 29th December 1965. On 25th May 1966, he was found guilty of twenty-eight charges of murder (involving seventy-one victims) and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
He served seven years in prison and was released on health grounds. He died not long afterwards.
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Paul Degenhardt, was born, on 5th January 1895, in Landeshut/Schlesien, into a large family of roofers. He and his five siblings were mainly raised by their mother (Anna nee Wit), as their father died in as work accident at the turn of the century.
He attended elementary school and then began work in a silk weaving plant where, through self-study, he became a pattern draughtsman.
In August 1914, he volunteered as a soldier. During the First World War, he was deployed on the Eastern Front and was twice slightly wounded by grazing shots. Following the end of the war, he joined the Freikorps, fighting in the east.
In November 1919, he joined the Sicherheitspolizei [Security Police] in Breslau. In 1920, after attending a police academy, he came to Oels and, after having worked in various commandos in Kreuzberg and Gleiwitz and taking part in other courses, he became a police sergeant in 1927.
On 23rd February 1931, in Gleiwitz, he married Charlotte Arn. They had three adult daughters came from this marriage. A son died soon after birth.
On 1st September 1932, Degenhardt became a member of the National Socialist Party – Membership No.: 1,330,601.
In the following years, he became actively involved in the party. In 1932-1934, he also belonged to the S.A. In 1938, as police chief, when he took over the local police station in Ackerfelde, he also became that town”s local NSDAP group leader.
Ref: R 70 POLEN – 908
It is believed that this is Degenhardt’s civil service personnel file and that he appears in a policeman’s uniform..
It shows that he was married on 25th February 1931 and subsequently had four children, one of whom died after one day.
More details are shown in the English-language translation of this document.
On 1st June 1940, Degenhardt joined the general SS and, having been promoted to lieutenant in the Security Police, he immediately received the rank of SS-Untersturmführer. Around this time, for official reasons, he needed to change his place residence several times.
At the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942, on 19th January 1941, he became an SS-Obersturmführer and, at about the same time, he was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer.
In the spring of 1942, Degenhardt was moved from Sosnowiec to Częstochowa, where he commanded the local police – taking over from Hauptmann Heutz, who was not a member of the SS. He remained in command there until the autumn of 1943.
During that time, he oversaw the deportation of over 40,000 Jews from Częstochowa to the Treblinka death camp. He also oversaw the creation and the liquidation of the Częstochowa “Small Ghetto”.
While in Częstochowa, he committed, or ordered to be committed, numerous murders. which are described in detail in the court verdict (the transcript of which appears on this page in both the original German and the English translation). In 1966, he was convicted on twenty-eight charges of murdering seventy-one Jews.
After leaving Częstochowa, Degenhardt returned to Sosnowiec for a short time – to the police headquarters, which had been established there in the meantime.
At the end of 1943, he was then transferred to the staff of the commander of the Ordnungspolizei in Corinth. One of his responsibilities there was to fight partisans.
When the Front was receding, he returned, via Vienna, to what was then Reich territory and ended up in northern Germany.
In April 1945, on the Elbe, he was taken prisoner-of-war by the Soviets – but he was soon able to escape. Shortly after, near Ludwigslust, Degenhardt was picked up by English troops, but escaped again
With “any” papers which he had been able to get hold of along the way, he went to Leipzig, where his brother-in-law gave him civilian clothes. He then made his way to Silesia [Pol: Śląsk], where he was arrested by Polish militiamen and was imprisoned in Ratibor [Pol: Racibórz].
After fleeing again, he took a job with a farmer in Thuringia, but then moved west, when American troops evacuated Thuringia. In Regensburg, he had papers issued in the name of his father-in-law and, as a construction worker, worked there and in the surrounding area. He then joined a refugee transport heading to Upper Bavaria and, still under a false name, worked as a farm hand until 1950.
Around this time, he found out that there was a police officer, living in Celle, who knew him from previous joint official activities before the war. Degenhardt went to see him – it was Hauptkommissar [Chief Inspector] Galonska. He told him that he had recently been released from Polish captivity. After Galonska confirmed his identity, he had the correct papers issued again. He remained in Celle, working in various jobs. From Celle, he again got in touch with his family, who had found shelter in the Ore Mountains.
Together with them, in 1951, he moved into an apartment in Unterlüss.
At the end of 1951, for the first time, Degenhardt showed signs of a mental disorder. He was admitted to the Lower Saxony State Hospital in Lüneburg by decision, on 18th November 1955, of the Celle District Court .
The medical officer’s report, dated 17th November 1955, contained the diagnosis that he was suffering from increasing mental and physical restlessness, which had increased to nocturnal “wanderlust” and that, according to his own statements, he was hearing voices that he had heard from his earlier experiences in fighting against partisans.
In addition, the medical officer had found an injury on Degenhardt, the result from an attempted suicide.
However, a final decision on his accommodation was not made, as Degenhardt agreed to remain in the hospital voluntarily. The “final improvement”, when he was released on 7th January 1956, did not last. On the advice of his family doctor, he returned to the Lüneburg State Hospital.
From there, on 7th July 1956, he was released as largely improved.
[Webmaster: There are opinions that Degenhardt was feigning illness in order to avoid prosecution.]
Almost three years later, namely on 11th May 1959, for a third time, Degenhardt entered the Lüneburg State Hospital for treatment of an “endogenous psychosis”.
It was here, on 14th December 1959, that an arrest warrant, dated 9th December 1959, was executed.
He was suspected of being an accessory to murder. Pre-trial detention was ordered to be carried out in the State Hospital because of Degenhardt’s state of health.
Another arrest warrant was issued, on 23rd October 1963, by an investigating judge of the Lüneburg District Court and was executed on Degenhardt on that day.
It was based on the suspicion of murder. It is believed that the delay, some four years, in issuing this warrant was due to the prosecution attempting to locate appropriate witnesses to the different charges.
The pre-trial detention was carried out on the basis of that warrant, after the first warrant was overturned by decision of the First Serious Crime Division of the Lüneburg District Court on 12th March 1965
According to the Lüneburg Public Prosecutor, after serving seven years in prison, due to his ailing health, Paul Degenhardt was freed by the Niedersachsen Minister-President – as an “act of mercy”.
[Webmaster: Ironic, since he showed no mercy towards his Jewish victims.]
On 24th May 1996, Degenhardt was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Lüneburger Schwurgericht (court) and was serving his sentence in the Strafvollzugsanstalt Celle [prison in Celle]. His health was already weak at the time of the trial.
He died not long after his release.
Acknowledgements:
The World Society
sincerely thanks
DR. ROMAN RADWAŃSKI
and
PROFESSOR JERZY MIZGALSKI
for their efforts in discovering this material and arranging to make it available for our website.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE:
Copyright of the original material contained on this page belongs to
BUNDESARCHIV in BERLIN
(German National Archive)
and
INSTYTUT PAMIĘCI NARODOWEJ (Institute of National Remembrance)
Copyright of the English language translations belongs to
ANDREW RAJCHER.
The material, on this page,
may NOT, either in part or as a whole, be copied, distributed or published without the prior written consent
of the copyright-holders.
Home and the Road - the Road and Home
Home and the Road - the Road and Home
- a picture of the lives of Częstochowa Jews in 1945-2020
Dom i Droga – Droga i Dom, published in 2020, is the first synthetic work presenting an important and, at the same time, difficult research issue concerning the Jewish community in Częstochowa following World War II.
When Częstochowa was liberated on 17th January 1945, of the almost 30,000 pre-War Częstochowa Jews, 1,215 had survived. Much divided them, but one thing united them – a love for their home city. Their situation, due to the turmoil of history and politics was, for many years, extremely uncertain, especially in the context of the tragedy of the Kielce events in 1946 and, later, in March 1968 and the waves of emigration caused by it.
Against this background, the founding and activity, decades later, of the World Society of Częstochowa Jews and Their Descendants is an extraordinary phenomenon.
The contribution of Sigmund Rolat (a former prisoner in HASAG-Pelcery) is especially significant in the extensive restoration of the old cemetery and the commemoration of the time when Częstochowa Jews were transported to the extermination camp in Treblinka.
The symbols of the HOME (lost as a result of the Holocaust) and the ROAD (forced by the fate of emigration) intertwine, in a distinctive mosaic, overlapping within the subject of this well-written and broadly documented publication.
The authors present a pioneering and a long-awaited, by many, compendium of knowledge about the Jewish community of Częstochowa from 1945 to the present.
Click on any chapter heading icon to reveal text.
(The numbers in brackets, after each entry, correspond to the appropriate page numbers in the book.)
Authors:
Cezary Karzimierz Szymański
Cezary is the Director of ORION TV, the local Częstochowa television station.
For many years, he has been a strong and active supporter of our World Society and, through his television station, he has promoted all our Reunions, ongoing local Jewish community events and the Jewish community itself.
Jakub Szymański
Jakub is Cezary Szymański’s son and a practising lawyer in Częstochowa.
Since his teenage years, Jakub has taken an active interest in the Jewish history and legacy of his home city.
English translation:
Andrew Rajcher
IMPORTANT NOTICE
While this English translation is available for download, it may not, either in part or as a whole, be distributed or published without the prior written permission of Muzeum Częstochowskie and Andrew Rajcher, this English-language version copyright-holders.
Relevant Writings
Relevant Writings
by various authors
In this section of our website, we publish relevant research and academic papers, which we believe will be of interest to our website’s visitors.
Papers will be listed here alphabetically by author.
Wherever possible, permission from the author is always sought prior to publication here.
(If you have any recommendations for the inclusion of additional material, please advise our Webmaster: aragorn@axiomcs.com.au).
Jolanta Altman-Radwańska z"l
Jolanta Altman-Radwańska z”l
Jolanta Altman-Radwańska, following a long, debilitating disease, died on 18th January 2022 in Bonn on the Rhine. In her childhood and adolescence, she was involved with the Częstochowa branch of the Social-Cultural Association of Jews in Poland (TSKŻ).
Her father was already a journalist by the inter-war period. He came from a well-known Jewish family, who had been associated with Częstochowa for over a century. Jolanta’s mother came from Lublin, from a patriotic, Polish, Catholic family.
In June 2020, she recorded her memories, filled with names and facts about the years spent in the TSKŻ. Asked to comment on these recordings, her husband, initially sketched her profile, attempting to recreate and understand her extremely interesting, though complex, identity.
Professionally, Jola graduated in history at the Śląsk University in Katowice (1976). Then for eleven years, she worked scientifically, including as the head of the Research Department at the Central Museum of Prisoners of War in Opole-Łambinowice. During those years, she established contacts with a group of several dozen former Polish officers from the World War II period, examining their fate as prisoners of war.
Following the forced aggravated political situation in her country, she emigrated to Germany at the end of the 1980s. There, she resumed her work in the field in which she had begun. She continued collecting material for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Bonn, publishing numerous source articles on the fate of prisoners of war, as well as Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian forced laborers in the Rhineland.
The network of contacts with this group of people, built up over the years, resulted in the organisation of several “Weeks of Meetings”, commissioned by the City of Bonn in the years 2000-2006. These was a strong media extraction and recalling of the difficult fate of these people during their forced stay in the city during the war years.
Submitted by:
Dr. Roman Radwański PhD.
English translation by
Andrew Rajcher
Post-War Abandoned Częstochowa Properties
Post-War Abandoned Częstochowa Properties
Presented, here, are scanned pages containing a listing of post-War, abandoned properties located in the city of Częstochowa.
This listing was prepared by the District Liquidation Office in Częstochowa, which operated from 1945 until 1951. The scans of this listing were obtained from the Polish State Archives in Kielce.
The Polish-language column headings, in English, are:
- L.p. = Line No.
- Ulica = Street [name]
- Numer domu = Building No.
- Rodzaj nieruchomości = Property Type
- Nazwisko i imię były właściciela = Surname & First Name of Former Owner
- Grupa = Group
- Reprywatyzowane = Reprivatised
- Przekazano Zarządowi Miejskiemu = Municipal Authority Notified
- Uwagi = Comments
Some other useful translations:
- i inni = and others
- dom = house
- plac = block of land
To search this listing by owner name,
click HERE.
Simply enter the surname at the top of the search engine.
The World Society sincerely thanks Daniel Kazez and the Częstochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group for making this listing and search engine available to us.
Please note: Some street names may have been changed since the time this list was created.
The Czarnylas Family
The Czarnylas Family
- a tribute to the maternal side of his family by Alon Goldman

The Czarnylas Family Before World War II
My mother was born on 1st April 1918 in Pajęczno, the sixth daughter of Jakub-Jankiel Czarnylas and Tova Gitla Czarnylas (née Rząśyńska).
Jakub-Jankiel Czarnylas, my grandfather, was also born in Pajęczno on 15th June 1886, to Icek Czarnylas and Frajdla Czarnylas (née Lipszyc), the fifth of their children.
From documents, which I found in the National Archives in Częstochowa, I learned that my grandfather Jakub-Jankiel had six brothers and sisters, who were all born in Pajęczno.:
Jakub-Jankiel, my grandfather, was born on 15th June 1886. His siblings were:
- Szandel, born 17th May 1873
- Abram, born 12th May 1875
- Esther, born 24th March 1878
- Hersz-Herszlik Fajbusz, born on 22nd January 1880
- Aron, born on 19th September 1882
- Nacha, born 1st May 1891
On 6th November 1908, my grandfather Jakub married Tova Gitla Rząśyńska, born 7th November 1886, in Pajęczno, the daughter of Gabriel and Mindla (née Buchman) Rząśyński.
I know nothing about the childhood of my grandparents and their family in Pajęczno, nor where they lived and what their parents did .
My great-grandfather Icek Czarnylas (my grandfather Jakub’s father) died at the advanced age of eighty-two in Pajęczno, on 16th February 1935 (Record No. 1/1935). he was buried in the local cemetery, of which no trace remained after World War II. From his death certificate, I learned that he was born in 1853 to Jakub-Jankiel Czarnylas and Sarah-Sura Czarnylas (née Bursztyn), both permanent residents of Pajęczno. I know nothing about my great-grandmother Frajdla-Freida (Icek’s wife) nor about when and where she died.
My grandparents, Jakub and Tova Gitla had seven children, all born in Pajęczno :
- Frajdla (Franka), born 16th February 1910
- Abram, born 14th November 1911
- Chana (Andrza), born 15th September 1914
- Bejnusz, born 1914, died 13th November 1915
- Miriam (Mania), born 13th December 1916
- Sarah-Sura, my mother, born 1st April 1918
- Joseph-Josek, born 20th April 1920
- Mosze, born July 1922, dec. 20th Sept. 1922
Due to the economic situation between 1920 and 1925, I do not know exactly when my grandfather Jakub and his family moved from Pajęczno to Częstochowa .
My grandfather Jakub was a successful businessman. He owned a sawmill, traded in lumber and, as well as other businesses. was a partner in a mirror manufacturing factory.
In Częstochowa, the Czarnylas family lived in a building owned by the family at ul. Katedralna 4, (on the corner of ul. Ogrodowa). In May 1939, together with two partners, Jakub Czarnylas purchased the building at ul Katedralna 8 in Częstochowa.

I know very little about my mother’s childhood in Czestochowa. Financially, the family was wealthy and lacked for nothing. A nanny lived with them, who took care of all their needs. Sara attended a high school for girl, and was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist youth movement. Her sisters, Mania and Franka, joined the Betar Zionist youth movement.
When she was 16 or 17 years old, she first met my father, Jerucham Goldman, who lived on the parallel street (at ul. Fabryczna 22 which, today, is ul. Mielczarskiego 22).
In 1933, her brother Abram immigrated to Israel in order to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
From research I carried out at the Pajęczno civil registry office, in the National Archives in Częstochowa and other places, I was able to find some information, in the period prior to World War II, about family members of my grandfather Jakub Czarnylas.
On 20th February 1893, in Pajeczno, his sister, Szandel Czarnylas, married Szaja Heller, who was born in Będzin on 23rd November 1869 and died on 10th September 1932.
In 1900, his sister, Esther Czarnylas, married Szlama Joskowicz, who was born in Będzin on 22nd November 1874. The couple had three children: Sarah born 23rd October 1902, Israel Lejbusz born 22nd April 1906 and Ruchla Frajdla born on 3rd October 1911. Esther and Szlama’s son, Israel Lejbusz married Ruchla Matla and, in 1934, they had a son David.
On 28th October 1903, in Pajeczno, my grandfather Jakub’s brother, Hersz-Herszlik Fajbusz Czarnylas, married Hanah Broda). Her family was also from Pajęczno and the couple had four children, all born in Pajęczno:
- Sara, born 28th October 1903
- Bejnusz, 10th April 1907 – 11th June 1910
- Miriam-Maria, born 30th June 1908
- Freida-Frajdela, born 28th September 1909
Hersz Fajbusz’ wife, Hanah, died on 21st January 1911 at the age of only twenty-eight. Two years later, on 22nd April 1913, Hersz Fajbusz married again, this time to Rebecca Minc of Zabkowice. This was also Rebecca’s second marriage. She had a son from her first marriage, Binem, who was born on 7th October 1907.
In Pajęczno, grandfather Jakub’s brother, Aron Czarnylas, married Chaja Ita née Abramowicz and, in Pajęczno, the couple had three children;
- Malka, born on 1st July 1900
- Frajdla, born on 8th May 1910
- Abram,born on 22nd May 1912
Grandfather Jakub’s sister, Nacha Czarnylas, married Jakub-Jankiel Lieberman, a merchant and one of the leaders of the Pajęczno Jewish community. In Pajeczno, the couple had eight children:
- Josef
- Isac
- Szmuel (Szmil)
- Frajdla born 24th June 1916
- Abram, born 10th March 1919
- Mosze Chaim, born 5th October 1921
- Aron, born 9th October 1922
- Meir, born 25th March 1925
The Holocaust
Luck did not play out for the Czarnylas family. On 3rd September 1939, Częstochowa was occupied by the Germans, who also occupied Pajęczno on 4th September 1939. From moment, the lives of the population, in general, and the Jewish population in particular, turned into Hell.
Shortly after the conquest of Częstochowa, in November 1939, my father said to my mother, “This will not end well and we must flee”.
Both, young and in their early twenties, were still unmarried. They came to their parents and offered to join them in escaping to the Russian side of the border, to Lwów, a city which my father had known from his electrical engineering internship, which he had completed just before the outbreak of the war. Their parents refused, claiming that the war would end soon and that there was no point in leaving Poland. In spite of everything, my parents decided to flee and, through difficult means, managed to escape to the Russian side of the border and to reach the city of Lwów. Grandfather Jakub Czarnylas tried to persuade them to return to Częstochowa and asked a rabbi to go on a mission to Russia to find them in Lwów and persuade them to return home to Częstochowa. The rabbi went to Lwów, met them and conveyed the message from their parents. He also gave them a sum of money which the parents had sent for them.

My parents, who were convinced that there was danger in Częstochowa, asked the rabbi to marry them in a Jewish ceremony. So, on 22nd December 1939, my parents were married in a Jewish wedding in Lwów. The rabbi returned to Częstochowa and informed their parents of their marriage.
In 1940, my father found work in a quarry and my mother also found temporary work which enabled them to survive. All the while, they were looking for ways to bring their parents to the Russian side of the border – but without success.
When the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941, my parents fled eastward towards Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and, after some wandering, came to Tashkent and, from there ,to Samarkand.
In Samarkand, my father found a job in a beer factory. During his work, he fell ill. But, at that time, he could not afford to get sick and so he continued to work. It later turned out that, at that time, he had contracted tuberculosis. How he managed to overcome the disease no one knows .
Life in Russia was not easy to say the least. It was a Hell on Earth. In 1942, when word spread about the possibility that Anders’ Army (Polish Armed Forces in the East) would move westward outside Russia’s borders, my father took advantage of his profession as an electrical engineer and managed to enlist in Anders’ Army in the hope that he could leave Russia with the army .
After a long journey through Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, in May 1943, my father arrived in Mandatory Palestine (now Israel) with Anders’ Army.
My mother managed to leave Russia as the wife of a soldier in Anders’ Army and came to Mandatory Palestine with the Tehran children.
On her way to Palestine, in October 1942, the Polish consulate in Tehran issued her with a passport with which she was allowed to enter Mandatory Palestine .
Pic left: Passport, issued by the Polish consulate in Tehran on 15th October1942, in the name of Sara Goldman née Czarnylas.
In July 1943, Anders’ Army left Palestine for Egypt and, later, for North Africa, joining the Allied forces in Italy. At the end of the war, my parents met again in Palestine.
Arriving in Palestine, my mother met up with her brother Abram Czarnylas. At that time, he was the only family member known to have survived.
I do not know much about what happened to my family members who remained in Poland – in Pajęczno and in Częstochowa. I found the name of my grandfather Jakub Czarnylas on a list of forced labourers in the HASAG Pelcery forced labour camp in Częstochowa and, apparently, the rest of the family were also forced labourers in this factory, which manufactured ammunition for the German war effort.
Almost the entirety of my mother’s family who remained in Częstochowa – her father Jakub, her mother Gitla and her sisters Miriam (Mania) and Hanah (Andrza) – found their deaths, during the liquidation of the “Big Ghetto” in September-October 1942, either in Częstochowa or in Treblinka.
According to testimonies from survivors, Jozef Czarnylas, my mother’s younger brother, was shot in the head by a German soldier in June 1941, when he lit a cigarette without permission while working at the Möbellager. This was a warehouse, on ul. Wilsona in Częstochowa, where the Germans stored furniture removed from Jewish homes in the ghetto.
Of the whole family, only one sister, Frajdla (Franka), survived the torment of the Holocaust. According to some documents, it seems that, for a certain period, she was in the Łódź ghetto, from where she returned to Częstochowa. From April 1940 until 16th January 1945, she toiled in HASAG Pelcery of Częstochowa. She was then sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, from where she was moved to the Burgau concentration camp, a sub-camp of Dachau. From there, she ended up in the Turkheim concentration camp, from where she was liberated on 27th April 1945.
Frajdla (Franka) was the only one of the whole family to return, after the end of the war, from the concentration camp to Częstochowa, only to see that no one from the Czarnylas family from Pajęczno and Częstochowa remained alive. As many did, Abram and Sarah in Israel and Frajdla (Franka) in Poland also began looking for survivors until they found each other. In 1948, Frajdla (Franka) left Poland and immigrated to Palestine to reunite with her brother and sister.
I was able to find very little information about the fate of the family members, brothers and sisters of my grandfather Jakub Czarnylas , who remained in Pajęczno.
During the German occupation, Jakub Lieberman, husband of Nacha Czarnylas (my grandfather’s sister) who was one of the leaders of the Pajęczno community, was appointed Chairman of the Judenrat. This was a thankless task, which required him to relate to all refugees from nearby villages and to supply the Germans with labour quotas.
From the beginning of the occupation, the Germans occasionally demanded work crews for camps in the Poznan area. More than once, the Judenrat succeeded in bribing German officials in order to cancel any deportation.
In 1941, the Pajęczno ghetto was established in the poorest part of the city.
Penalty taxes were repeatedly imposed upon the residents of the ghetto. The looting of Jewish property in the ghetto reached its peak in the spring of 1942, two weeks before Passover, when German police went from house to house, beating the residents, taking some as hostages and robbing them of their possessions. In the spring and summer of 1942, the Judenrat was required to hand over certain Jews to the Gestapo. In June 1942, the Chairman of the Judenrat, Jakub Lieberman was himself arrested along with eleven other Jews. They were all murdered by German policemen and, in their place, the Germans appointed the butcher Berl Mrówka to head the Judenrat. According to testimony given to Yad Vashem, Jakub Lieberman and other members of the Judenrat were taken to the Łódź ghetto, where they were executed by hanging.
The liquidation of the Pajęczno ghetto began on 19th August 1942. About 1,800 Jews of the ghetto were brought to a church and were held there for several days under extremely difficult conditions. During those days, another 140 Jews, who were found in hiding places in the ghetto, were forced to join them. On 21st August 1942, the Germans murdered all the elders in the churchyard, including Mrówka, the head of the Judenrat.
On 22nd August 1942, most of the Pajęczno Jews were deported to their deaths in the Chełmno extermination camp. The rest were sent to the Łódź ghetto. Of all the members of the Lieberman family, the only one to survive the Holocaust was Aron Lieberman. On 19th December 1939, he was imprisoned in Pajęczno, from where he moved about between concentration camps – to Monowitz, Fogenbord, Posen (Poznań), Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Following his liberation in 1945, in a chance meeting with one of his townspeople, he realised that none of his family members had survived the Holocaust and so he had no reason to return to Pajęczno.
Pic below: Aron Lieberman’s ex-concentration camp identity card
Life After the Holocaust
Adapting to life in Israel was not easy for my parents, both in terms of housing and work. They had to cope with a new place, a new language and a difficult economic situation in those first years. On 9th July 1948, my older brother was born and was named Jacob, after his two grandfathers, who perished in the Holocaust. After his birth, my parents bought a three-room apartment in Ramat Gan, where they lived all their lives. I was born in this home on 8th August 1953 .
My father Jerucham began his career in Israel with occasional jobs in the electrical field. At one time, he ran a garage specialising in automobile electronics, until he found employment, in large factories, in his profession as an electrical engineer. In 1958, he was appointed Chief Electrical and Maintenance Engineer of the Beilinson Hospital, the biggest hospital in Israel. He worked until he retired in 1986. After retiring, he continued to work for several more years as a consultant to a network of nursing homes and a private hospital in Bnei Brak.
All those years, my mother was a housewife and, when my brother and I were already grown up, she operated a sewing shop in a large textile chain in Israel.
My parents were very happy when they saw the establishment of the next generation of the Czarnylas and Goldman families in Israel. My brother Jacob married Yehudit (née Mendelson) on 13th October 1971. They have two daughters, Liat and Karen, and four grandchildren. I married Dorit (née Sussman) on 16th October 1986. We have three daughters – Tal, Dana and Noa and currently three granddaughters.
My mother, Sarah Goldman (née Czarnylas), passed away on 8th October 1988 and my father Jerucham Goldman passed away on 1st December 2000.
Frajdla (Franka) (née Czarnylas), after immigrating from Poland to Israel, lived in Tel Aviv. She first married in 1950, a marriage that did not last. In 1957 she remarried. Throughout her life, she suffered greatly from health problems caused by everything which she had gone through in the concentration camps. She had no children. She died in Tel Aviv on 10th March 1978.
Abram Czarnylas, who came to Israel as a student, married Esther (née Ha’Ivri). They had three children – Prof. Josef Czarnylas (a cardiologist, named after his uncle, who was shot to death in Częstochowa), Nira and Nava. They have eight grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren. Abram was a businessman in the field of building materials and real estate. He died of a heart attack in Israel on 24th December 1960, at the age of only forty-nine.
Aron Lieberman (son of Nacha Lieberman – née Czarnylas) was the only survivor of his family. After being released from Auschwitz and, after a chance meeting with his townspeople in a displaced persons camp, he realised that no one from his family was alive and so he went to Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. There, he was adopted by a Dutch family and found a job at Philips Electric. In 1954, he came to Winnipeg, Canada, and, in 1958, he married Dora Wise. Aron had two sons, Jeffrey and Gary, and five grandchildren. After searching for several years, the cousins Aron, Sarah, Abram and Freidla (Franka) found each other. In October 2021, he celebrated his 99th birthday.
All these years, we have lived in the knowledge that, with the exception of the four, Abram Carnylas, Freidla-Franka (née Czarnylas), Sarah GOLDMAN ( née Czarnylas) and Aron Lieberman, all the other members of the Czarnylas family perished in the Holocaust.
Complete and Unfinished
In 2014, during one of my visits to Poland, I met Ms. Anna Przybyszewska, from the Genealogy Department of The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, in order to try to find more information about my Czarnylas family members from Poland. Unfortunately, at this meeting, no new information was revealed.
However, a big surprise awaited me in early 2015, seventy years after the end of World War II. I received an email from Anna Przybyszewska in which she wrote that she had come across a passenger list from a ship called the Noordam, which had arrived, on 9th June 1920, at Ellis Island in the United States from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. One of the passengers on this ship’s manifest was Rebecca Czarnylas (aged thirty-five). She was a native of Zabkowice, who had lived in Pajęczno and had arrived with six children – Sarah (aged 17), Binem (13), Maria (11), Frania (10), Zelma (8) and Motka (7). Her husband, Harry Lass, a baker, who lived at 603 Iowa St., Sioux City, Iowa, was waiting for her on the platform, and he was the one who paid for the passage.
Another look at Ellis Island’s website, of records of entry to the US, yielded another surprise. On the passenger list of that same ship, the Noordam, arriving in the USA from Rotterdam on 29th October 1920, was Hanah Czarnylas (35) from Pajęczno. She appears with with three children – Malka (aged 18), Frida/Trailo (11) and Abram (9). Her husband, Archie Lass, a baker, who lived at the same address as Harry Lass, 603 Iowa St., Sioux City, Iowa, is also listed as waiting for her on the platform and he also paid for the family’s trip.
Are Harry Lass and Archie Lass, brothers of the Czarnylas family from Pajęczno? Is Harry Lass perhaps Hersz Fajbusz Czarnylas and is Archie Lass perhaps Aron Czarnylas, the brothers of my grandfather Jakub Czarnylas?
In an attempt to solve the mystery, I went back to check the certificates (birth, marriage) of Czarnylas family members from the National Archives in Częstochowa. Given that the passenger list records the age of the passengers when arriving in the United States, together with the place of birth and husband’s occupation, I reasoned that we could compare the details and then determine if the immigrants to the USA were possible family.
From the examination of the documents in my possession, I understood very quickly that the three children (Sarah, Maria and Frania), who came with Rebecca, WERE the children of Hersz Fajbusz Czarnylas, from his marriage to Hana Broda, and that Malka, Frida and Abram were the children of Aron Czarnylas from his marriage to Hana Ita Abramowicz.
I also discovered that Hana Czarnylas (nee Broda) had died in Pajęczno on 21st March 1911 and that Hersz Fajbusz Czarnylas remarried Rebecca Minc of Zabkowice on 13th April 1913. (She was the woman who came to the United States with the children.)
But who were the other three children on the list who came with Rebecca? How do I verify beyond any doubt that Harry and Archie are the brothers of my grandfather Jakub Czarnylas?
My search on the JewishGen website led me to Katherine Lass from St. Louis, USA, who was looking for information about the Czarnylas from Zabkowice. I contacted her and, after an email exchange and phone calls, the mystery was solved. She told me that Binem (one of the children) was Rebecca’s son from her first marriage and was Katherine’s father. According to what Binem had told Katherine, they were from a small town in Poland and that their family name in Poland was “Black Forest” which, in Polish, is “Czarnylas”. Katherine’s grandmother Rebecca was from the Minc family and Zalma (Sam) and Motke (Max) were children born from Rebecca’s marriage to Harry. In response to my question if she had contact with the rest of the family, she answered that she had no contact, but knew that one cousin, Kenneth Lass, was living in Nashville, Tennessee.
According to Jewish tradition, it is customary to write the Hebrew name and the father’s Hebrew name on a person’s cemetery gravestone. On the one hand, I have the Polish documents with the Hebrew names that were used in Poland but, on the other hand, I have the names that were often written incorrectly when arriving in the US, along with the new names which they adopted. In order to further my investigation, I had the idea to try to locate the burial places of Harry and Archie and to see what is written on their gravestones, and whether the name of their father Isac appears on their gravestones.
My efforts bore fruit and in the Independent Farane Jewish cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa, I found their graves. With the help of Ms. Rhonda Menin, the cemetery director, I obtained pictures of the three graves:
Harry P. Lass – died 7th March 1952 – Section A, Grave 1411
On his tombstone, written in Hebrew, is Zvi Hersz son of Isac/Yitzchak, next to the name Harry, the name which he adopted in the USA. Zvi is Hersz, so Harry’s Hebrew name, year of birth and father’s name matched the documents from Poland.
Harry’s wife Rebecca Lass – died 23rd May 1958 – Section A, Grave 1412
Rebecca’s father’s name, David, which appears on the tombstone, is the same as her father’s name which appears on her marriage certificate to Hersz Fajbusz (Harry) from Poland .
Archie Lass – died 4th November 1941 – Section A, Grave 1414
On his tombstone is written, in Hebrew, Aron son of Isac/Yitzchak Lass.
Exactly when Hersz Fajbusz and Aron, my grandfather’s older brothers, immigrated to the United States, I do not know.
My mother never talked about family in the USA and I guess, until the day she died, she did not know about all of it. So all these years we lived thinking that the whole Czarnylas family had perished in the Holocaust. In my estimation, they left for the USA sometime after 1913 and, after establishing themselves, in 1920, they brought their wives and children.
Thanks to difficult genealogical research, I found some of the Czarnylas descendants all over the United States in such places as Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Plano, Chicago, Springfield, Nashville, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles.
When I contacted them, it was a huge surprise and big shock for them – the discovery of an unknown chapter in their family history which begins in Pajęczno in Poland, about which they knew nothing.
This is where my story ends – the story of the Czarnylas family from Pajęczno and Częstochowa, Poland. I do not know everything and there are many things which I will never know .
Webmaster’s Comment:
The contents on this page,
about the maternal side of his family
has been supplied by
Alon Goldman,
Chairman of the
Association of Częstochowa Jews in Israel,
Vice-President of the World Society of Częstochowa Jews & Their Descendants.
Below, he writes a little about himself:
As in many homes of Holocaust survivors, in my home, my parents hardly talked at all about the Holocaust. In fact, we, the second generation, were not so interested in the subject.
As a child, at home, I spoke to my parents in Polish as a first language, which I had learned from my mother and father naturally (a language I speak to this day, even though I never formally learned it in school and which I call “Intuitive Polish”, because I can’t explain why I say things the way I say them).
We lived in our world, as Israelis proud of the free State of Israel, and facing the needs for its existence, seeing as how it is surrounded by Arab countries wishing to destroy it.
Like most youth in Israel, I grew up in a modest home. At the age of 18, I completed my high school education and, in 1972, I enlisted in the Israeli army like most Israeli youth. During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, I served as an officer in the 401 Tank Brigade in Sinai and, after my release from regular service, I continued in the reserve service for many years, from which I was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
At the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, I studied for a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and, at Tel Aviv University, I completed a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. Concurrently with my studies, I worked at Bank Leumi, where I was promoted to very senior management positions.
When my mother passed away in 1988, I suddenly realised that I knew almost nothing about my roots and that I also had no one to ask, since almost her entire family perished in the Holocaust and those of her family members, who survived, had already passed away.
This was the beginning of my journey to discover my roots and identify as part of the heritage left to me by my father and mother. The journey continued in earnest several years later.
In 2006, I was invited to join the Association of Częstochowa Jews in Israel. In 2011, I was elected Chairman of the Association and then also to the office of Vice-President of The World Society of Częstochowa Jews and Their Descendants.
During this time, my ties with Poland have strengthened and so the journey to discover my roots has intensified .
Częstochowa Jews - a Biographical Dictionary
Częstochowa Jews - a Biographical Dictionary
- edited by Dr. Juliusz Sętkowski
This book contains almost 600 biographies of Jews, who were associated with Częstochowa in the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries. It includes those who were born and lived permanently in Częstochowa, as well as those who were associated with the city for a short period or even for several years.
What determined their inclusion in the publication was their professional and creative activity or social service within the community. Some of the distinguished individuals in this dictionary were born in Częstochowa, but left at a young age and their contributions became well-known elsewhere – in Israel and abroad.
Included are profiles of Jews who were significant in the history of the city and the state. They include the names of Jews active in the economic, political, local, social, religious and scientific fields, as well as in education, health, law, sports, culture and art.
This book is the result of research by many people over many years – in archives, published bibliographies and press reports – as well as efforts to obtain information directly from families. The work makes extensive use of necrology, documenting information about deceased people, as well as broader memories describing the activities of a given person. Much information was taken from inscriptions engraved on the cemetery tombstones. The book makes use of the extensive material contained in the first volume of the cemetery book by Wiesław Paszkowski, “The Jewish Cemetery in Częstochowa”, which was published in Częstochowa in 2012.
About the Editor, Dr Juliusz Sętowski: Born in Częstochowa in 1959, Dr Sętowski heads the Częstochowa Museum’s Centre for Documentation of the History of Częstochowa (ODDC). He specialises in the history of Częstochowa and the surrounding region. He is the author, co-author and editor of numerous studies on the history of the city, including monographs of schools, four biographical guides to Częstochowa cemeteries and he also guides historical tours around Częstochowa. In 2007, he was awarded to Karol Mirka Prize.
This book is the winner of the inaugural and 2020 Wolf & Dora Rajcher Memorial Prize
for the best, new, original research into the Jewish history of Częstochowa and the surrounding region.
All English-translated texts are listed below in the order in which they appear in the book.
Please note: There is no “Q”, “V” or “X” in the Polish alphabet. (Any names containing these letters have been misspelled or have been changed post-war.)
Click on any “BIOGRAPHIES…” header below to reveal individual biographies.
(There are no surnames beginning with “Y”.)
(The numbers in brackets, after each article, correspond to the appropriate page numbers in the book.)
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Andrew Rajcher
IMPORTANT NOTICE
While this English translation is available for download, it may not, either in part or as a whole, be distributed or published without the prior written permission of Muzeum Częstochowskie and Andrew Rajcher, this English-language version copyright-holders.
Collecting the Memories
Collecting the Memories
- for us and for future generations

Over many years, many Holocaust survivors have documented their memories in different languages and in different methods – through printed, limited-edition memoirs, in video documentaries, in written, photographic and/or video testimonies for Yad Vashem, the USC Shoah Foundation, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in local Holocaust museums and more.
For us and for future generations, these memories and testimonies are of the greatest historical importance, as they represent survivors and witnesses telling us their own stories of what occurred in Częstochowa before, during and after the Holocaust. They also tell of these survivors’ post-War fates – whether they immigrated to Israel, to elsewhere in the world or whether they remained in Poland
As these survivors and witnesses sadly leave us, by preserving their stories, we will enable them to continue to speak to us “from beyond the grave”.
We launched this project – “Collecting the Memories“ – so that, under the “one roof” of our website, we can endeavour to centralise all those personal stories – published, through whatever media and in whatever language – so that they may be preserved for posterity.
SIMPLY CLICK ON EACH NAME TO VIEW THE COLLECTION OF MEMORIES
This film, from the Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies, features seven survivors from Częstochowa, who describe their lives before the War – the German invasion, the ghettos, the mass killings, the deportations, the slave-labour in German factories which were established in Częstochowa, their liberation by Soviet troops and their subsequent fates.
It was produced in 2004, for the First Reunion of the World Society of Częstochowa Jews & Their Descendants, by Joanne Rudof and edited by Michael O’Keefe.
Click HERE to view the video.
HALINA BARKANI nee SZMULEWICZ was born in Częstochowa in June 1926.
In 1998, she published “Memories of Częstochowa”, the story of her life in Częstochhowa and of her survival from the Holocaust.
Click HERE to read her story in HEBREW.
Hanka Batista-Rozyn was born in Czestochowa in August 1937
As a five-year-old, her mother left her on a bridge in central Częstochowa, with instructions to go a specific woman.
This is the story of Hanka’s survival and of Henryk and Gertruda Zielonka, the couple who, in June 1943, took in Hanka, thereby saving her life.
On 12th April 1993, the Zielinka couple were honoured, by Yad Vashem, with the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”.
Click HERE to read Hank’s story in HEBREW.
Click HERE to read Hank’s story in POLISH.
Click HERE to read the story of how the Zielonka couple saved Hanka (in ENGLISH).
Click HERE to watch Hanka tell her story (in HEBREW with ENGLISH sub-titles).
Dov Ben Ya’akov (Bolek) was born in Częstochowa in 1914.
In this document, he writes, in great detail, about the Częstochowa ghetto and states, “We asked ourselves again and again, during the time in our ghetto and after the War, how did it happen that, despite the information we received, the beginning of the revolts came so late?”
Click HERE to read the original HEBREW text
(courtesy Moreshet, Mordechai Anielewicz Memorial).
Click HERE to read the ENGLISH translation.
Menachem Besserglik dated his original Yiddish-language manuscript 20th December 1945.
As such, his writing about the German occupation of Częstochowa were derived from very recent experiences and memories.
If anyone knows of an English language translation, please advise our Webmaster.
Click HERE to read the original YIDDISH document.
Click HERE to read the HEBREW translation.
ISAAC BIRKENSZTADT was born in Częstochowa in March 1923.
In a very, comprehensive manner, Isaac tells the story of his family, his wartime experiences and his fate after the War, including proudly presenting his own descendants.
Click HERE to read the original document in HEBREW.
Click HERE to watch Isaac’s video interview with Yad Vashem.

BERL BLAUWEISS was born in Częstochowa in 1926.
In a collection of ten notebooks, he wrote, in Yiddish, his memoirs about the Częstochowa ghetto.
An attempt was made to translate them in Hebrew, however this was only partially successful due to the text being difficult to decipher.
Click HERE to view the notebook manuscripts.
Dorka Bram-Sternberg was born in Czestochowa in 1926.
Two notes were buried, in the ground in a bottle, beside the graves of twenty-five Jews who were murdered, on 4th January 1943, in the Second Aktion in the Small Ghetto in Czestochowa. The notes were discovered during the exhumation and transfer of the victims to a permanent grave following liberation. Included here is a brief testimony from Dorka Bram-Sternberg, who witnessed the murder of the twenty-five Jews.
Click HERE to view the images.
After the War, in Hebrew, she wrote detailed memoirs about her experiences in Częstochowa from the outbreak of the War, on 1st Deptember 1939, until 23rd March 1950.
Click HERE to read the document.
In March 2020, the Ghetto Fighter’s House produced a video about Dorka’s life.
Click HERE to watch this documentary video.
DAVID BRAUNER is a Holocaust survivor from Częstochowa.
In 1999, he gave a video testimony to Yad Vashem about his memories of life in the Częstochowa Ghetto.
Click HERE to view that Yad Vashem testimony.
In 2013, he gave another video testimony to Yad Vashem, this time about his life and about how he survived the Holocaust.
Click HERE to view Part 1 of that Yad Vashem testimony.
Click HERE to view Part 2 of that Yad Vashem testimony.
Originally written in Yiddish, this work, by Liber Brener, Viderstand un Umkum in Czenstochower Ghetto [“Resurrection and Destruction in the Częstochowa Ghetto”], is an expansion and reworking of a diary which the author continued for a long time while in the ghetto and in the camp.
Following liberation, he restored his memoirs, verifying and completing them through a series of German, Polish and Yiddish documents, as well as testimonies from other Jewish survivors of the Częstochowa ghetto.
Click HERE to read the HEBREW translation.
Click HERE to read the ENGLISH translation.
(Note: As the English translation is not one carried out through our own Yizkor Book Project,
we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.)
Miriam (Marishka) Chen was born in 1931. When she was eighteen months old, following the death of her father, with her mother Hela née Altman (born in Częstochowa), she went to live in Częstochowa.
In a testimony she gave, in Hebrew, to Yad Vashem, she tells of her childhood in Częstochowa and of her experiences during the Holocaust – in the Ghetto and in the HASAG slave labour camp.
Click HERE to read a transcript of Miriam’s testimony in HEBREW.
This document is a translation into French and is entitled “An Episode in the Częstochowa Ghetto”.
It centres around the liquidation of the ghetto, which commenced on 22nd September 1942.
Click HERE to read the document.
Holocaust Survivor Rachela Flug was born in Częstochowa in 1924 – she is the sister of David Brauner, whose testimony also appears on this page.
The video of an interview with her has been provided by Alan Silberstein. He writes:
In 2005, when the “Jews of Czestochowa” exhibition opened at the Polish Consulate in New York City, a small, trim woman approached me and asked if I was related to Leon Silberstein. “Yes”, I told her, “he was my father”. She said that she had served under him in the underground. She said that she was only a soldier – a messenger, in fact – and my father was much more senior. There was so much I wanted to know. A week or so later, my son Eric and I met with her in her apartment in Queens, NYC, with a video camera. We spent about an hour and a half speaking about her experiences during the War. She was very gracious, but asked me not to release the video to anyone while she was alive.
Sadly, Rachela Flug passed away, in New York, in 2017.
Click HERE to watch the interview with this amazing lady.
DAVID and SIMA FORBERG met in 1944 in HASAG-Pelcery, the slave labour camp in Częstochowa.
Despite the incredible odds which they faced, they not only survived the camp, but survived over 60 years of marriage.
In 2010, an award-winning video documentary was made of their story. Click HERE to read what motivated the filmmaker, Frank Lozano, to make this documentary about the Forberg couple.
Click HERE to view their story.
CHAIM FREITAG was born in Częstochowa in 1920.
In 1997, Chaim returned to Częstochowa. His visit was filmed. During the journey back to his roots, Chaim talks about life in the Częstochowa ghetto, the liquidation of the ghetto and of the murder of his parents and his two sisters.
Click HERE to view the video.

We know little about W. GLIKSMAN.
In the text, written in Hebrew and French, he writes about the Częstochowa ghetto in the years 1942-1943 – which includes its liquidation.
If anyone knows more about this writer, please email the Webmaster.
Click HERE to view the document.
JAKOB GLIKSON was born in Częstochowa in 1927.
In 1946, in a notebook, Jakob wrote his memories of the transition from the beautiful city of Częstochowa to life in a ghetto. He also describes his journey to Buchenwald, as well as his arrival at and liberation from Theresienstadt. After completing the writing of his testimony, the notebook remained closed and was not opened again until after Jakob’s death in 1986. Using excerpts from that notebook, his daughter Judy Glikson Pasternak has written her father’s story.
Click HERE to read Jakob’s story in HEBREW.
Click HERE to read, in ENGLISH, why his daughter Judy wrote her father’s story.
RUBIN HERSZLIKOWICZ (HERSCH) was born in Częstochowa in 1921. ROSE (nee GORSET) was born in Częstochowa in 1922.
They survived the Częstochowa ghetto, HASAG-Pelcery and a post-War Displaced Persons Camp.
In 2006, their grandsons, Jeffrey and Joshua Hersch, produced a video testimony by their grandparents in order to fulfill a mitzvah project prior to Joshua’s Bar-Mitzvah. At the time when they produced the video, Jeffrey was 16 years old and Joshua was 13 years old. So, considering this, the video, entitled “We Must Never Forget”, is exceptional!
Prior to this, Rubin and Rose had never shared their stories with anyone. They were scheduled to be interviewed for Spielberg’s Shoah archive, but they backed out at the last minute.
In this video, they talk about their lives in Częstochowa, before and during the Holocaust, and also about their post-War fate.
Click HERE to view the video in English.
Several years ago, after a “Birthright” visit to Israel, their grandson Jeffrey Hersch, decided to travel to Poland. During that trip. he visited Częstchowa. He decided to share that experience with the World Society, as part of our “My Częstochowa” project.
Click HERE to read, in English, the impression this visit made upon him.
In 1945, the author writes a lengthy, Yiddish-language document about the establishment and activities of the Jewish underground in the Częstochowa ghetto.
If anyone know more about the author, please contact the Webmaster.
Click HERE to read the document.
GABRIEL HOROWITZ was born in Częstochowa in September 1934.
Having escaped from the Częstochowa ghetto, he and his family were rescued by Wacław and Helena Miłowski, both of whom were later honoured with the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”.
Click HERE to read Gabriel’s story in ENGLISH.
Click HERE to read Gabriel’s story in HEBREW.
Click HERE to read Gabriel’s story in POLISH.
HERSZ JEDLINSKI was born in Częstochowa on 17th December 1918.
He survived the Częstochowa ghetto and the HASAG-Pelcery slave labour-camp, while his entire family was deported to Treblinka.
Finding himself alone, he left for France, where he found his two sisters who had settled there before the War.
His daughter and son-in-law, ELIANE and CLAUDE UNGAR, have carried out extremely in-depth research into Hersz Jedlinski and his Częstochowa family. The extent of their research is amazing and the presentation of the results of this research is not only informative, but exceptionally beautiful.
Click HERE to read, in FRENCH, the story of Hersz Jedlinski and his family.
DEVORA KANTAROWICZ was born in Łódż in December 1926.
When the War broke out, her family moved to Częstochowa to join relatives there.
Devora iss a survivor of the Częstochowa ghetto and the HASAG-Pelcery slave-labour camp.
In August 2000, she gave a video testimony to the Yad Vashem Institute, in which she talks about her childhood in Poland and her surviving the Holocaust.
Click HERE to view that testimony in Hebrew.
JUREK KIRSZENBAUM was born in Częstochowa in 1929,
His story, as told by his wife Marta, tells of his family, his experiences in the ghetto and his incredible survival in HASAG-Pelcery. It also tells of how he gave evidence in a German trial, as an eye-witness, against one of the most brutal German officers in that slave-labour camp.
Click HERE to read his story in HEBREW.
Click HERE to read his story in ENGLISH.
MEMORIES OF HASAG-WARTA IN CZĘSTOCHOWA
Victor (Yeshayahu David) Klapholz was born in Kraków in 1925.
At the end of 1942, together with another group of Jews, including his brother, Haim Hanoch (Heniek), he was transferred from the Płaszow camp to forced labor at the HASAG-Warta munitions factory in Częstochowa. Victor and his late brother Haim Hanoch survived the Holocaust.
The following are Victor’s memories of his time in the HASAG-Warta slave labour camp. They are extracted from Victor’s testimony, given in Hebrew, to the Yad Vashem Institute.
Click HERE to read his testimony in ENGLISH
Click HERE to read his testimony in HEBREW

What struck this descendant of Holocaust Survivors was how many times the Survivors used the word “lucky” when talking of their experiences. They would say that surviving the War was not about being smart, but about having a bisele mazel ‐ a bit of luck. It seems that these families had a LOT of luck
Click HERE to read the story of these families in ENGLISH.
LEW KUSZNIR was born in Częstochowa in August 1911. As a talented painter, in his youth, he served as assistant to Professor Perec Willenberg, when he painted the ceiling of the Old Synagogue on ul. Mirowska. Before the War, he also worked as a photographer in Częstochowa.
Lew Kusznir survived the Holocaust in the Częstochowa ghetto and in HASAG. Thanks to his many photographs, we are able to see Jewish life in Częstochowa immediately after the War. His collection of photographs can be found in the archives of Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters House and, thanks to the approval of his daughter Dr. Barbara Refaeli, they can also be found on display in the Czestochowa Jewish Museum.
In 1995, Lew Kusznir recorded a testimony for Yad Vashem in which he talks about Czestochowa, the ghetto and HASAG during the German occupation until the liberation by the Russians. He describes his employment, by the Germans, in painting, photography and graphics while, at the same time, he forged documents for Jews and the underground. He emigrated to o Israel in 1950.
Click HERE to read Lew Kusznir’s Yad Vashem testimony in HEBREW.
MICHAŁ LAJZEROWICZ was born in Częstochowa in 1927.
In a Hebrew-language video testimony given to Yad Vashem in January 1992, Michał talks about his family, life in Częstochowa before the War, life in the ghetto during the War, his arrival in the Treblink death camp, his escape from Treblinka, his return to Częstochowa and his immigration to Israel in 1946.
Click HERE to view Michał Lajzerwicz’s Yad Vashem testimony.
Efroim Majerowicz was born in Łódż in 1914, from where he arrived in Częstochowa on 14th Deccmber 1939.
His memoirs, written in Polish and translated into Hebrew, feature life in the ghettoes of Częstochowa and Hrubieszów. They cover the period from the beginning of the War until his escape from a camp.
Click HERE to read his memoirs.
ZVI MOTLYŃSKI was born in 1910, BELLA (nee HECHT) in 1920.
In her memoirs, Bella Motolyński recounts her time at the HASAG-Pelcery slave-labour camp in Częstochowa, where she ended up following the liquidation of the “Small Ghetto” in June 1943.
HASAG-Pelcery comprised several departments and factories, one of which was the Rekalibrirung, where Bella and around seven hundred other labourers worked from 7am until 7pm. The Department cleaned the ammunition pods of anti-aircraft guns. These pods were placed into boiling water from a boiler and, while they were still hot, the labourers extracted them, by hand, and arranged them into crates. Needless to say, they suffered constantly from burns. Their living conditions were very poor. In the morning, they received a slice of bread and “black coffee”, at noon a slice of bread and a little “soup” and, in the evening, nothing.
On 15th January 1945, when the Germans heard that the Russians were approaching. They fled so quickly, in the middle of a meal, that they left behind plates of food on tables. In the evening, when it was certain that the Germans had left, the forced laborers entered the warehouses and the German staff houses and took everything they could – weapons, kitchenware, clothes, etc.
Bella took a soup bowl of soup bearing the HASAG logo. She kept it for many years and, in 2002, she donated it to Yad Vashem.

Click HERE to read Zvi Motlyński’s story in Hebrew.
Click HERE to read Bella Motlyński’s story in Hebrew.
It appears that, when the War broke out, JAKOB PYTEL was a bookkeeper/accountant in Częstochowa.
This document, written in Polish, concerns Częstochowa’s Jews under Nazi occupation in 1942.
According to notations, this document was written into evidence at the Nuremberg trials.
Click HERE to read the document.
YITZHAK SZAJN was born in Częstochowa in May 1921. His brother, Szlamek, is buried together with Jerzy, Sigmund Rolat’s brother, in the common grave of the six partisans.
He and his family have created an album telling the story of the Szajn family.
Click HERE to read Part 1 of the album
Click HERE to read Part 2 of the album
Click HERE to read Part 3 of the album
On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2014, Yitzhak Szajn featured in a program on Israel’s Channel 2. (For copyright reasons, this video can only be viewed from inside Israel.)
Click HERE to view the video.
In 2015, Yitzhak Szajn featured in the “First Generation Tells” event, conducted by the Association of Częstochowa Jews in Israel.
Click HERE to view the video.
When he was two-and-a-half years old, Seweryn’s parents snuck him out of the Częstochowa ghetto and gave him to a Gentile couple who, for two years, hid him from the Nazi patrols in a hole in the ground.
Click HERE to view his interview with Children of the Holocaust.
Holocaust survivors YITZHAK WIŚLICKI was born in Częstochowa on 14th August 1909. CHAJA WIŚLICKA nee FRANK was born in Częstochowa on 24th May 1919.
Their daughters, Michal Bodeniuk and Shosh Horen grew up in the shadow of their parents’ Holocaust experiences. Today, Shosh Koren is a tour guide for Israelis visiting Poland and leads them through Częstochowa following her family’s story.
Michal and Shosh decided to write a book to “pass on to future generations – our children and grandchildren – so that they may learn the history of our family tree“.
Click HERE to read their family’s story.
NAOMI ZOHAR nee ZANDER was born in Częstochowa in 1920. She survived the Holocaust, left for Israel and settled on Kibbutz Gesher.
Click HERE to read her autobiography in HEBREW.
Click HERE to read her thoughts, in HEBREW, about writing her autobiography.
In 2008, a HEBREW-language video was made telling of her life
entitled “Częstochowa to Kibbutz Gesher”.
Click HERE to view the video.
From the Webmaster:
Should you have any questions or would like to submit material for this project, please contact:
Alon Goldman
(in the first instance)
Andrew Rajcher
If you should find that any links, contained within this page, are “broken”, please email the Webmaster:
Andrew Rajcher
Sam Krycer z"l
Sam Krycer z"l
- Częstochowa-born centagenarian and Australian World War II veteran
Sam (Zajnwel) Krycer z”l was born in Częstochowa on 17th January 1919. He arrived in Australia on 11th December 1938, settling in Melbourne. During World War II, he served in the Royal Australian Air Force.
On 25th April 2019, at 100 years of age, he represented the Royal Australian Air Force and led the annual ANZAC Day parade (Australia’s memorial day).
Sadly, Sam passed away on 31st July 2019.
Between his participation in the parade and his passing, Sam agreed to talk about his life with our World Society webmaster, Andrew Rajcher.
Click HERE to read Sam describing his long, eventful life.
SAM AND HIS FAMILY
LEAVING CZĘSTOCHOWA FOR AUSTRALIA
MILITARY SERVICE IN WORLD WAR II
ANZAC DAY – 25th APRIL 2019 (Australia’s memorial day)
In 2019, Sam was given the honour of leading the annual march, from Melbourne’s downtown area to the city’s Shrine of Remembrance.
Webmaster’s Comment:
The pictures in this tribute page
have been supplied by Sam’s sons
David Krycer and Colin Krycer.
I thank them sincerely for arranging
my interview with their late father and
for supplying the pictures appearing here.
In May 2019, it was truly an honour
for me to sit with Sam, in his home,
and to listen to his eventful story.
Częstochowa's Israel Heroes
Częstochowa's Israel Heroes
- Honouring True Heroes
In this section of our website, we honour Israel’s “Częstochowa Heroes” – those Częstochowa landsleit who gave their lives in Israel’s Defence and/or Security Forces before, during and after the creation of the State of Israel.
Many Polish Jews were involved in the campaign to establish a Jewish state in Israel. Some immigrated to Israel before World War Two. Some of those, prior to immigration, had fought World War Two battles in foreign armies or as Jewish Brigade volunteers. Most of them, Holocaust Survivors, who came from Europe illegally, immediately went to war for the independence of their new country .
The battles were fierce and some of those Czestochowa heroes, who had lived through the inferno in Europe, gave their new country, Eretz Israel, their most precious gift of all – their lives.
Through their sacrifices and deaths, they commanded us to live. We will remember them forever!
In composing our list, we draw upon the resources of Izkor, the commemoration website for the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces.
Below, we present the stories of these “Częstochowa Heroes”.
SIMPLY CLICK ON EACH NAME TO READ THEIR STORIES OF HEROISM.
The son of Shmuel-Yakovand Devora, he was born in Częstochowa in 1922. In his youth, with his parents, he immigrated. Dov completed his schooling in Paris and began work as a salesman in a store. He was a member of a Zionist youth movement and dreamt of immigrating to Eretz Yisrael. However, in 1940, he found himself caught up in the fate of European Jewry. Dov was taken to a forced-labour camp where luck and his youthful strength helped him to survive five years of slavery and hard labour. When was liberated, he actively devoted himself to Zionism and to preparation for his immigration to Israel.
He left his parents behind in the Diaspora and, in November 1946, he set sail for Mandate of Palestine on the ship “Latrun” as an illegal immigrant. The ship was intercepted by the British and its passengers were sent to a camp in Cyprus. After four months, he was freed and arrived in Israel. He immediately joined the “Notrut” (the Jewish guard brigade in the British police force during the British Mandate period) and the “Haganah”. Following this he joined the IDF and served in the Kiryati Brigade.
Dov fell in the battle of Dayr Tarif, during Operation Danny on 12th July 1948 (5th Tammuz 5708). He was interred in the Military Cemetery of Nachalat Yitzchak in Tel-Aviv.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Mosze and Pnina, he was norn in 1929 (5689) in Częstochowa. In 1936, (5676), the family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine and settled in Tel-Aviv, where Yitzchak attended the “Nes Tziona” Elementary School. When he grew up, and understood the degree to which his parents were struggling to support their two children, he began to give up playing games in order to help his mother with the household chores. He was also active in the “Machanot Ha’Olim” youth movement and later in the “Ha’Tenua Ha’Meuchedet” youth movement. Upon completion of his primary school studies, he began work in an auto repair garage and he bring his wages home to his parents.
He was accepted to the Haganah and began his Army service as a signaller. Upon completion of his course, he continued on as a “madrich” in Gadna, a program to prepare young people for the Army. Together with his friends, he went out for “hachshara” (training) at Kibbutz Cholta, because he saw his future on a kibbutz. He assisted in training and worked with dedication and responsibility. He was placed in charge of the work schedule in the “Garin” (a group of candidates to be accepted into the kibbutz).
In the winter of 1948, he fought in the Upper Galilee as part of the “Ha’Galil” Battalion of the Palmach, which later became one of the battalions of the Yiftach Brigade. He was seriously wounded in a retaliation operation against the village of Ichsanya on 3rd March 1948 (2nd Adar Sheni 5708). Yitzchak demanded that his comrades leave him he was already mortally wounded – and there he died. Yitzchak was interred in the Chulta Cemetery.
Just prior to his death, he told his comrades, “We will emerge victorious. There is no other way. We will finish the War in victory”.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Dov and Arella, he was born in Częstochowa on 21st February 1932 (14th Adar Aleph 5692). In 1934, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, completing his studies at the “Chugim” High School in Haifa.
In October 1950, he joined the IDF in October 1950 and served in the Nachal Brigade. However, because he was not satisfied with what he was doing there, he volunteered to transfer to the Air Force, where he successfully completed pilot training with the rank of Second Lieutenant, after which time he competed a second course.
His commanders praised him greatly as a disciplined and responsible pilot. He fell while carrying out his duties on 14th December 1952 (26th Kislev 5713) and was interred in the Haifa Military Cemetery. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
In 1955, his parents made a donation to the aeronautical library at the Technion University and, on the shelves, a memorial plaque was mounted bearing the inscription “Tvi’s Corner”.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Mosze and Róża, he was born in Częstochowa in October 1917 (Cheshvan 5678). He immigrated to Israel in 1927 and, there, completed his studies in elementary school. He then rounded out his education through self-study. By profession, he was a weaver by profession. In 1948, hoined the IDF and fell in the performance of his duties on 28th May 1952 (4th Sivan 5712).
He was interred in the Kiryat Shaul Military Cemetery in Tel-Aviv. He was survived by his wife and three children.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Dawid and Lea, he was born in Częstochowa on 10th July 1948 (3rd Tammuz 5708). The family immigrated to Israel in 1950. He attended the Be’eri elementary school in Neve She’anan, Haifa and then high school at Tichon Ironi Gimel.
He belonged to the “Ha’Tnuah Ha’Meuchedet” youth movement. He successfully completed a course for “madrichim” (counsellors) in Kibbutz Ramat Yochanan and was very successful as a “madrich”. He played soccer in the “Hapoel” movement and was also active in a course for junior level “madrichim” and heads of basketball teams. He regularly swam across the Kinneret and took part in various races. He was a member of the “Ha’Noar Le’Nnoar” movement and, there, he met with youth who had turned to crime. This was Moshe’s attempt to understand their way of life and to influence them to change their lifestyle to a more positive direction. He collected stamps and coins and travelled all across the country.
Upon beginning high school, he settled quite well and was prominent in the student body, but that did not prevent him from engaging in naughty behaviour and in pranks. But, as time went by, they got to know him better and to see that, behind the regular exterior, there was a lad with unusual characteristics. These were prominent whenever he was confronted with a challenge which stimulated him to make an effort which demanded of him to utilizs his skills.
He was an exemplary commander during the Gadna travels. He showed initiative in organization and in providing assistance where needed, especially in times of crisis when difficulties were encountered. In these cases, he would act with maturity and responsibility and he could be counted upon. His personality radiated confidence and calm over his surroundings and, in the classroom, he related, seriously, to those subjects which interested him. There would be a true connection between him and the subject and also between him and his teacher. A feeling of responsibility in him was prominent, when he was required to calm the class, to restore quiet in the classroom and after some act of naughtiness. Menashe was the one who would turn to the chevra and say, “Okay, enough now”.
It is no wonder that, later, Menashe found his place in the army, in the Tzanchanim (Paratrooper) Corps. Even though he was his parents’ only son, and all the family had perished in the Holocaust, Menashe succeeded in getting what he wanted within the Tzanchanim. He fought in the Six-Day War in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights. At the end of the battles, he completed a Class Commander course and an Officers Training course. He joined the “sayeret” and, in the “hot” period of terroristism in the Jordan Valley and on the West Bank, he participated in many difficult and cruel pursuits, during which the best of the Tzanchanim commanders fell, such as Arik Regev, Gad Manala, Moshe Stempel and others.
His soldiers respected him because of the way he related to them and how he served as a personal example. He demanded obedience from them, but through recognition. He demonstrated friendship and loyalty from them and, through his pleasant manner, he realised his goals. He preferred to explain and to persuade in a sociable kind of way and, in this manner, he was able to find a way to those soldiers who were problematic and turn them into dedicated and loyal soldiers. During his period of service, he attained the rank of Lieutenant.
On 26th October 1968 (4th Cheshvan 5729), as he was leading his soldiers to take cover during a period of intense shelling, he fell in a battle near the Suez Canal. He was interred in the Haifa Military Cemetery. In a letter of condolence to his parents, his commander wrote, amongst other things,
I knew him well. I saw him perform in training and in operations. He was an excellent officer, understood his job and mastered his men and material. He belongs to that generation of giants who arose from the fire of the Holocaust. I am sure that his immediate surroundings influenced him more than anything – his home and his parents. He was close to his family and wanted them to be well. He understood that, given the conditions we are faced with in this country, someone has to do the hard work and he was not willing for someone else to do that work for him. I am sure that all that Menashe did, he did forothers. We are obligated to continue where Menshe left off – we and you.
On Chanukah 5729, the Student Council of the Ironi Gimel High School of Haifa published a booklet entitled Hadim, in which there are pages dedicated to the memory of Menashe. About a year after Menashe fell, a book entitled I Have an Only Son, G-d Guard Him, written by Binyamin Zev Yefet, was published by Moked Publishers His grave lies in the Haifa Military Cemetery.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Shimon and Esther, he was born on 14th February 1914 in Częstochowa. He was the great-grandson and grandson of a family of rabbis. In his hometown, Marian attended yeshiva and high school. During his studies, he belonged to the Betar youth movement. After graduating from his studies, he moved Łódź, where he was a merchant. He married and was the father of three daughters.
At the outbreak of World War Two, he was drafted into the Polish army and, in battles near Warsaw, he was captured by the Germans captivity. The Germans did not realise that he was Jewish and, at the end of 1939, together with other Polish officers, he succeeded in escaping captivity. He then reunited with his family and moved to the Soviet Union. After wandering all over the Soviet Union, they reached Uzbekistan. When a Polish army was established in the Soviet Union, under the command of General Anders, Marian joined and, with the Anders army, he went through Iran, Israel (where his family stayed) to South Africa. From there, he moved to England and took part in the invasion of Normandy, liberating Europe from the Germans.
On a journey of blood and fire, he passed through France, Belgium and the Netherlands and, with his unit, arrived in Germany. On 14th May 1945 (2nd Sivan 5765), he was killed by a landmine near the city of Wilhelmshaven and was interred in a mass grave with his comrades-in-arms. He left a wife and three daughters. The rest of his family perished in the Holocaust.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Mosze and Lea, he was born in Częstochowa on 23rd November 1913 (23rd Cheshvan 5674). As a teenager, he dropped out of school in order to help support his family. He worked alongside his father in a lock manufacturing factory. He persevered in increasing both his productivity and the quality of his work and, eventually, rose to the position of foreman and co-ordinator in the department which assembled the locks.
He joined the Ha’Shomer Ha’Tzair youth movement and was known both for his reticence and for his activity. He tended to rise above difficult positions, but disliked talkativeness. David was sent for “hachshara” (training) in Chełm and Lublin and served as work organizer and Assictant Treasurer, responsible for the financial support of his forty movement members from the proceeds of their work in various places. In this capacity, he also looked for employment opportunities for them and sometimes only two of the forty were working. He, therefore, needed to find opportunities to find sources for loans.
When it came his turn to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael, he gave up his right in an act of sacrifice, giving his money to one of his brothers in order to allow him to immigrate, so as to allow him to avoid served in the Polish Army. David, himself, was conscripted into the Polish army at the beginning of World War Two. After Poland capitulated to the Germans, David succeeded in avoiding German imprisonment and continued to work in the Częstochowa factory. He continued working while being confined in Częstochowa’s “Big Ghetto” and, after most of the Jews were killed, also in the “Small Ghetto”.
At the same time, he was active in the ghtteo underground, specialising in the digging of bunkers and communication tunnels. With his comrades, he endured the efforts of communicating with the Socialist Polish Underground outside of the ghetto, in order to obtain guns and help. However, from the Poles, they were unsucessful, encountering an aggressive response. When the “Small Ghetto” was liquidated, David succeeded in fleeing alone and, with the help of a Polish friend, found his way into the forest. The Polish Partisans refused to accept Jews into their ranks. So, for more than a year, he and a few Jewish comrades lived with a Jewish Partisan group, surrounded by danger from the Germans on the one hand and hostility from the Poles on the other. After he was liberated, he fell ill from exhaustion and from the hardship.
When he recovered, he went to Romania. There he dedicated himself to the service of the “Bricha” (the organised underground effort which helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post-World War Two Europe to Mandatory Palestine in violation of the British White Paper of 1939). In this capacity, they assisted many to reach Italy in order to immigrate, from there, to Eretz Yisrael. During this time, he received a certificate which allowed him to be able to immigrate legally to Mandatory Palestine, but he relinquished it and, for two years, worked on the Polish-Austria and Germany-Italy routes, in order to facilitate the escape of Jews to sea ports for illegal immigration.
In August 1946, he was able to illegally immigrate to Israel, together with his brother. There, he joined his friends on Kibbutz Yad Mordecai. In spite of his frail body, due to hhis past great suffering and exertion, he immediately went to work and tried to do even more than he was capable of doing – as was always his way. But remained a loner and distanced himself from his contemporaries, spending his spare hours in reading or in recalling grim memories.
In the winter of 1948, when the War of independence broke out, he volunteered his services in the planning of the trenches and bunkers, a specialty culled from his past experience in the Częstochowa ghetto. When his advice went unheeded, he would sit silently, carrying out his responsibilities to guard, to dig and to stand guard at the observation posts. During the campaign against the Egyptians, he also undertook the responsibilities of those who had fallen. He would stand at observation points without being relieved and without any complaint – 19th May 1948 (10th Iyar 5708), he was hit by a bullet and died.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Avraham and Róza, he was born on 31st December 1912 (21st Tevet 5673) in Częstochowa. When he was a pupil in the local high school, the “Ha’Shomer Ha”Tzair” youth movement, where he was known for his mild manner, his energy, his perseverance, his intelligence and for his devotion to the ideal. He soon became prominent as a madrich (counsellor) in the local ken, in summer camps and, later, as a madrich in the Zagłembie region of Poland. He later joined the primary leadership of the movement in Równo and then in the movement’s centre in Warsaw.
On 4th April 1939, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine and joined the first encampment of his kibbutz in Netanya. Through sheer determination, he overcame the pains of rheumatism from which he suffered and became accustomed to hard, physical work. Evenings and Shabbatot were spent in cultural programming in his kibbutz and in involving himself in the affairs of the community of workers in Netanya.
In 1942, he joined the British Army and served in the Artillery Corps in the Western Desert of North Africa, as well as in Italy. In the Army, also, he dedicated himself to public activities and was chosen as a representative to mutual assistance organisations.
Upon his return to his home in Kibbutz Yad Mordecai in the Gaza plain, he was chosen as the Kibbutz Secretary, a position which he fulfilled with dedication. Later, he became a member of the “Ha’Merkaz Lagola” (The Diaspora Center) in which he was a madrich for the Cherut garin of new immigrants from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He helped them to settle, practically and emotionally, into work and life on the kibbutz in Israel. In addition to his various public positions, he also worked in the chicken-coop of the kibbutz.
As a veteran soldier, he did not believe that Yad Mordecai could withstand an assault from the neighbouring Egyptian Army, which was vastly better equipped, but he still contributed his share to the defence of the kibbutz. As a trained artillery soldier, he utilised the only mortar in their possession, carrying it with him from one positon to another and striking at enemy concentrations. When the shells ran out, he continued to fight as a rifleman on the front line.
He wrote a letter to his wife on his last day, when she and their two children – together with the rest of the mothers and children – had been evacuated from the kibbutz. In it, he expressed the hope that “perhaps some of our kibbutz members will still successfully see victory and will take part in the restoration of the ruins”. Further, he writes, “We hope to see each other again. But, if not, I hope that you will know how to bear up under this as well”. To his son he writes, “Here, that there are dozens of thousands of shells”.
On 23rd May 1948 (14th Iyar 5708), the armoured divisions of the enemy broke through and he fell, while still standing on watch. He was interred in the Yad Mordecai Cemetery (Military Section).
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Margalit (Perłą) and Kalman, he was born on 11th February 1929 (1st Adar Aleph 5689) in Częstochowa, Poland, to parents who were observant Jews. When he was three-years-old, the family settled in the Free City of Danzig and Zvi attended a local, Jewish, elementary school. In 1939, Zvi and his father sailed to Mandatory Palestine on the illegal immigrant ship, the “Astir”. (His mother and sister remained behind, for fear of danger, in order to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael at a later date. Sadly, they did not immigrate in time and perished in the Holocaust). The ship was intercepted by the British and sent back out to sea. After much tribulation, Zvi succeeded in landing on the Gaza coast on a Greek fishing vessel, the “Mardas”.
Zvi underwent a short period of Youth Aliyah “Hachshara” (training) in Kiryat Chaim. From there, he moved to the Menachamia moshav, where he attended school for about two years. Afterwards, he continued his studies in the Ben-Shemen Youth Village. Zvi-Moshe excelled in his studies and was one of the pillars of the student body. He left Ben-Shemen as a member of the youth movement “Ha’Noar Ha’Oved”, in order to participate in the “Hachshara” at Kvutzat Geva. During the period of his service in the Palmach, he was known as a dedicated and courageous individual and was considered as a superb sapper.
On 14th February 1948 (4th Adar Aleph 5708), Zvi set out together with another combatant [Amikam Alon], who drove a vehicle which was loaded with explosives, in order to blow up the Sheikh-Hussein Bridge, on the Jordan River, next to the town of Beit Shean. The driver was supposed to break through the barrier and drive onto the bridge. Zvi, as sapper, was to be prepared to detonate the explosives. Despite the heavy fire which was coming from the Jordan Legion guard, the driver succeeded in getting the vehicle onto the bridge and then jumping into the Jordan River, where he was rescued. Zvi detonated the explosives, but was killed during the operation. He was interred in the cemetery in Kibbutz Ein Harod. He is memorialised in a booklet, produced in memory of the members of Kvutzat Hachoshlim [a kibbutz located in the Eastern Galilee, which is today called Amiad].
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Faybisz and Ida, he was born in Częstochowa on 5th August 1920 (21st Av 5680). All members his nuclear family, except for his brother Avraham, perished in the Holocaust. Following the Second World War, Zalman was hospitalised in the St. Ottilien DP Hospital next to the Dachau concentration camp. From there, he was released on 29th April 1945.
On 19th October 1946, he set out for Palestine from the port of La Sete in France, as one of the illegal immigrants on the ship, the “Latrun”. However, the British intercepted the ship on 1st November 1946, preventing its passengers from landing on the shores of Israel and deporting them to a detention camp in Cyprus. On 15th August 1947, he was freed from detention in Cyprus and arrived in Haifa. He was then sent to the Rishon Lezion Workers Council. He resided in immigrant housing and was employed, as a foreman, by one of the local citrus growers. In November 1947, Zalman met up with two cousins, who had survived the Holocaust -, Yisrael Stowitski and Hersz-Lejb Rozenfeld. However, after this, contact was broken. As far as can be determined, until Zalman was killed, he did not have any contact with any other family members.
At the beginning of July 1948 – during the first cease-fire in the War of Independence – Zalman, together with about four hundred other citizens who resided in settlements in the area, were recruited for work in building fortifications on the “Southern Front”. Zalman and his comrades worked under the command of the 53rd Battalion of the Givati Brigade which was active in the region. This supporting military activity and the assistance to the fighting units was called Betzer and was a joint project of the Haganah and the General Workers Union. This framework employed thousands of workers, who were not fit for fighting roles. Instead, they were involved in the construction of fortifications, in the digging of bunkers and in the building of protective walls.
According to available information, Zalman Rozenfeld was recruited for this project and was killed, by Egyptian gunfire from Beit Daras, on 8th July 1948 (1st Tammuz 5708). Apparently, he was in the settlement of Be’er Tuvia. In 1951, his brother Avraham immigrated to Israel and attempted to locate his brother. The Jewish Agency’s Department for Searching for the Missing was unsuccessful in locating him. Sadly, the fact was that Zalman was no longer amongst the living. His brother Avraham died in 1984, never knowing what happened to Zalman since they were separated in Europe.
At the end of the 1990’s, during the course of an investigation carried out by the “Eitan” Unit in the IDF, for locating soldiers missing in action, documents were found which led to a renewed research to find out what happened to Zalman. In 2009, Zalman was declared by the IDF and the Israeli Defense Ministry to be a fallen soldier, whose place of burial is unknown. The circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery and the issue is still under investigation.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
The son of Mosze-Ze’ew and Rachel, he was born in Częstochowa in 1924. Raised in an ultra-Orthodox home, he studied in elementary school and in yeshiva. With the onset of World War Two, he was uprooted from his surroundings. He was confined in detention and labour camps and labour thoughout the Nazi occupied, suffering a great deal until being liberated by the Allied forces . He found himself in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, where he joined the Haganah and prepared for immigration to Palestine to where he immigrated in 1947.
In Israel, he worked as an auto-mechanic in a garage in Tel-Aviv. In addition, he participated in the activities of the Haganah. He successfully completed a course in first-aid through Magen David Adom and, with the worsening of conditions near the borders of Tel-Aviv, he would go out to positions as an Army medic. Ober the course of his activity, he fell at his position, during the city’s bombardment, at Rechov Ha’Tabor in Tel-Aviv 21st March 1948 (10th Adar Sheni 5708).
He was interred in the military cemetery in Nachalat Yitzchak, Tel-Aviv.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
Israel Wollhendler was born in 1913 (5673) in Czestochowa. At the age of eight, he joined the “Young Cubs Regiment” of Ha’Shomer Ha’Ttzair and remained active within this Zionist youth movement until 1925, when he immigrated, with his family, to Eretz Yisrael/Mandatory Palestine.
In Israel, he learned to drive, something which remained as his occupation. His interest in sport culminated in his joining the Maccabi organization. At first, he participated in soccer, later athletics and then became a champion weightlifter. Yet he was also a nature-lover and frequently wander through the Carmel Mountains, which he got to know quite well.
In the Arab uprisings of 1929, he acted as a Haganah liaison between the settlement of Mishmar Ha’Yarden and Haifa and also performed guard duty in the Mt. Carmel area. In the Arab uprisings of August 1936, he volunteered for guard duty and excelled in his courage, dedication and readiness to carry out his job no matter what the danger.
In 1937, he began work with the “Hovala” Freight Group and was active in the National Transport Workers Association. On 15th August 1938, as he was driving a car on its way from Achuza in the Mt. Carmel area to his home, he was attacked by an Arab gang and was shot and killed on the spot. He was survived by a wife and daughter.
Click HERE to read his story in Hebrew.
(Courtesy: Izkor – commemorating the fallen personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces)
From the Webmaster:
My sincere thanks to Alon Goldman,
whose idea it was to create this memorial page and who did much of the original research which it contains.
The information contained here is based on
– a website dedicated to the personnel of Israel’s Defence and Security Forces
who fell during the creation and/or defence of the State of Israel.