Shlomo Breznitz

Shlomo Breznitz (b.1936)

Biography

By Christopher J. McClendon, University of Michigan (April 2020)

Shlomo Breznitz was born August 3rd,1936 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.

During the war, Breznitz lived with his mother, father and older sister Judith. His father’s position as chief engineer of the Transylvanian electrical company provided he and his family with a degree of immunity and for some time he was able to prevent them from being sent to a concentration camp. His family moved from village to village until there was no escaping the Nazi. In 1944, his father lost all immunity against being deported.

The night before their deportation to Auschwitz, the parents placed their children both Judith and Shlomo in an orphanage run by the sisters of the St. Vincent’s Convent in a final attempt to save their lives.

Shlomo is often referred to as Juri in his memoir. Juri recounts his often devastating experiences with other orphans, the nuns, his teacher and classmates at the village schools, the prelate and the mother superior, and the Nazi officers who periodically visited the orphanage. He describes his overwhelming feelings of loneliness, his persistent dread of being found as a Jew, his earnest determination to be a good catholic and the crushing sense of danger that looked over him at every moment. His phenomenal memory was discovered during his time in the convent and it helped him to recite the Christian prayers by heart. This ability earned him the protection of the local bishop who thought the boy would fulfill the fable of being a Jewish orphan who would one day become the Pope.

Shlomo’s father was murdered in Auschwitz. His mother survived and returned after the war to collect her children from the orphanage. The nuns gave up Judith but at first refused Shlomo due to his possible fulfillment of the highest position in the Catholic Church. Shlomo was only returned to his mother after the involvement of the authorities.

In 1949, Shlomo along with his mother and sister immigrated to Israel. Breznitz later became an author, psychologist and professor. He now is the founder and president of a brain fitness software called Cognifit.