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

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.

A famous picture shows him together with other children at Birkenau, when the camp was evacuated one month after liberation. Among those pictured are Tomasz Szwarz; Alicja Gruenbaum; Solomon Rozalin; Gita Sztrauss; Wiera Sadler; Marta Wiess; Boro Eksztein; Josef Rozenwaser; Rafael Szlezinger; Gabriel Nejman; Adek Apfelbaum; Hillik (later Harold) Apfelbaum; Marc Berkowitz (a twin); Pessa Balter; Rut Muszkies (later Webber); Miriam Friedman; and twins Eva & Miriam Mozes wearing knitted hats.

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.