11/09/2026
As we enter Rosh Hashanah 5787, our family is holding a sacred, deeply personal memory close to our hearts—one that defines our legacy of hope, faith, and survival. In these times of renewed global jeopardy, when the Jewish world feels increasingly vulnerable and foresaken again, the resilience of those who came before us becomes our ultimate anchor.
During Pesach in 1944, our family was brutally deported from their pastoral shtetl of Irsava in the former Czechoslovak Republic remote Carpats district—once the fief of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, the later Satmar Rebbe.
Following terrible days trapped in the local makeshift village ghetto and agonizing weeks in the Munkacs brick factory ghetto, the entire family was shipped in cattle cars to the railway platform of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
There, on the eve of Shavuot 1944, the "Thousand-Year Reich" industrially murdered our beloved 99 years old great-grandmother, our grandmother Sheindl, along with our late child aunt and uncles: Sara, Israel, Shalom, and little Jacob, who was only 3 years old.
Our grandfather, Lajos, was sent to the Aussenlager Kdo. Wolfsberg - Complex "Riese" secret Riese Project SS slave labor camp, where he tragically succumbed a few weeks later.
But two brothers survived that dismal selection: our late father, Hershl (then just 17), and his brother Shlomo (who was only 14).
Our late aunts Cila and Lily both managed as well to survive Birkenau and the ultimate deaths march to Ravensbrück.
Late uncle Abraham Herskovic הי"ד perished during those same deaths marches from Auschwitz, at the culmination of a 5 years long tragic odysee.
In the autumn of that same year, inside the misery of the Wolfsberg camp, a Hungarian cantor named Naftali Stern, a Satu Mare cantor, did the unthinkable. He traded his meager bread rations for a pencil and scraps of paper torn from discarded cement sacks. Entirely from memory, he hand-wrote a Machzor (prayer book) so the inmates could hold Rosh Hashanah services.
Our teenage father, Hershl (17), and his young brother, Shlomo (14), were privileged to stand side-by-side in that secret crowd of emaciated prisoners, listening to those unfathomable, defiant, transcendental Jewish service. Millenary Hebrew and Aramaic litanies amidst SS miradors. Against all absolute odds, our father and late Naftali Stern, author of the handwritten Machzor, separately survived the valley of death. Tragically, Shlomo did not live to see liberation; he was later transferred and perished as a martyr in the horrors of Ebensee camp in March 1945.
This profound moment of spiritual resistance is preserved today at Yad Vashem: World Holocaust Center, Jerusalem in historical record, validated through the scholarly research and definitive compilation publication, "The Wolfsberg Labor Camp Machzor, 5705," edited by Dr. Bella Gutterman. Her work ensures that the raw testimony of what our father and uncle witnessed remains etched in human history.
Compounding our heartbreak, the physical traces of this history are under active assault today. In the last year, part of the Wolfsberg camp site has been desecrated and erased by the local municipality to make way for a neighborhood of newly wealthy villas.
The Embassy of Israel in Poland, the Gross-Rosen Camp Museum, and the Silesian Voivodship are fully aware of this destruction—yet their awareness has been to no avail. Even the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - IHRA framework on countering Holocaust distortion is being completely bypassed by local authorities.
The only shield protecting this holy ground right now are the volunteers from the Warsaw-based Fundacja Thesaurus. They are raising the alarm and devoting endless efforts to contain further desecration, fighting to preserve the adjacent shrines of the former Project Riese labor camps.
People can try to build luxury villas over the blood of our families, but they cannot erase our memory. This story is our family's unbreakable foundation. It is proof that even when surrounded by the absolute deepest darkness—and even when official institutions and international frameworks fail to protect the past—the human soul, our traditions, and the truth of what our loved ones endured will never be extinguished.
Shlomo’s memory (14), and the memories of Sheindl, Lajos, Sara, Israel, Shalom, and little Jacob (3), were carried forward by our father every day of his life, and they live on proudly through us.
May we all carry the unmatched strength, resilience, and hope of our family into the New Year. Wishing you and your loved ones a sweet, peaceful, and meaningful year ahead.
🍏🍯 Le Shana Tova Tikatevu VeTichatemu
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🔗 Historical & Archival Links:
* 📸 View the Manuscript Images: You can see high-definition digital scans of the original raw, penciled cement-sack pages via the Yad Vashem Virtual Rosh Hashanah Exhibition https://wwv.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/rosh_hashana/prayers-for-the-new-year.asp
* 🇮🇱 Official Hebrew Publication: The definitive research album by Dr. Bella Gutterman is hosted on the Yad Vashem Hebrew Store https://store.yadvashem.org/he-il/products/the-wolfsberg-machzor-5705-16.
* 🇺🇸🇬🇧 Official English (and Spanish) Publication: The translated volume featuring historical camp analysis can be found on the Yad Vashem English Store https://store.yadvashem.org/en-il/products/the-wolfsberg-machzor-5705-16.
