Palo Shelah / Pavel Schlesinger (M / Slovakia, 1938), Holocaust survivor

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Palo Shelah / Pavel Schlesinger (M / Slovakia, 1938), Holocaust survivor.

Shmuel Schelach / Robert Schlesinger (M / Slovakia, 1934-2006), Holocaust survivor

Biography

Palo Shelah was born Pavel Schlesinger in September 1938 in southwestern Slovakia. When the deportations by Nazi Germany and the Slovak puppet government began in 1942, for a time a mixed Jewish-Christian couple hid Palo's family in the Slovak town of Nitra. Then, they crossed the border with Hungary, where Jews had not yet been rounded up. In September 1944, Palo's parents were arrested, and he and his 11-year-old brother Samuel found themselves alone. On foot they reached their uncle who lived in a nearby town but only to be arrested with him and transported to Auschwitz.

Their arrival coincided with that of SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who ordered a halt to the murder of the Jews in the gas chambers. He and his brother survived until the camp was liberated on January 27, 1945. His brother Shmuel Schelach is present in an iconic Auschwitz picture, that depicts 13 child survivors, shortly after the liberation of the camp.

After the war the family was reunited (they all miraculously survived). In 1948, Samuel, then 15, immigrated to Israel with a group of other youths; Shelah, then 10, later followed. Both were settled on different kibbutzim and their parents would follow only later.

Palo published his memoir ("Beyond the Bridge") in Hebrew in 2020.

External links

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