AMONG THE youngest of Holocaust survivors is Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled who was born in Belgium during the shop online 2011war and together with his sister was adopted by a Christian family with whom he lived until he was six. His father and many other relatives were murdered in Auschwitz. His mother survived the war, reclaimed her children and brought them here. Peled had a distinguished army career from which he retired in 1991 with the rank of major-general. He celebrated his 70th birthday on January 18. Some 450 people came to the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds to wish him well.
In 1993, when Yitzhak Rabin went to Poland for the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, he was accompanied by a large delegation of Holocaust survivors that included Gogol. Rabin had a special reason for taking Gogol with him. He wanted him to play the harmonica in Auschwitz again – but this time not as a persecuted Polish Jew, but as a proud Israeli. Gogol stood in that fearful place and played “Hatikva.” It was not only his anthem but his song of triumph over the Nazis. He died only a few weeks later.
■ HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR Joseph Bau used another art form in which to convey his experiences. A graphic artist and animator, poet, author and playwright, Bau for many years used his power balancetalents to tell his story. Part of his story was also told in Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award winning film Schindler’s List. It was at the Plaszow concentration camp that Bau met and secretly married Rebecca Tennenbaum. Their marriage was featured in the film. Bau was subsequently transferred to the Gross Rosen concentration camp and from there to Oskar Schindler’s camp, where he stayed till the end of the war. Rebecca was sent to Auschwitz, where three times she managed to evade the gas chambers.
After the war, the two were reunited and in 1950 they came here with an infant daughter. Another daughter was born to them. After Bau died in 2002, his daughters Cilla and Hadassa turned his apartment at 9 Rehov Berdichevski, Tel Aviv, into a museum. Last week, someone broke in, threw many of the exhibits onto the floor and stole two cameras used for animation. Bau had built them himself 60 years earlier. The cameras, of course, have historic value, but beyond that have nostalgic and emotional value for Bau’s daughters who travel the world to tell his story. They are hoping that the thief will feel some kind of remorse and restore the stolen items.
■ ALSO PERPETUATING the melodies of the Holocaust are members of the Ramat Gan Children’s Harmonica Orchestra founded by Shmuel Gogol, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz. Gogol had been one of the children cared for in the famous orphanage run by educator Janusz Korczak, who could have saved himself but opted to stay with the children. Korczak who likes coach outlet storefound all sorts of reasons for giving children rewards. He gave Gogol a harmonica which proved to be the instrument that saved his life. A talented young musician, Gogol was chosen to play in the Auschwitz orchestra.
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