In the past few years the myth that no records survived for anyone who perished in the Holocaust finally has been exploded. One of the most comprehensive and overwhelming sources is found in Bad Arolsen, Germany, in the records of the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross (ITS). This past year, a major breakthrough was achieved when the ITS agreed to release the balance of the documentation held in Arolsen. In 1955, it released a set of over 3,000 microfilms only available for research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Living in Jerusalem, I had easy access to this resource and used it frequently. To show how the newly released data has expanded what was available in the past, I refer to the collection released to Yad Vashem in 1955 as Arolsen I, while the data released in 2008, I refer to as Arolsen II. I hope that others will take full advantage of and carefully review the Arolsen material as they, too, will be able to uncover important family information that they thought did not exist. Here is one account of what can be discovered; I am confident that others will make similar discoveries in the future.

As the sun was setting on Israel’s celebration of its 60th anniversary on May 8, 2008, which had been moved up two days not to conflict with the Sabbath, hundreds of thousands of eyes were glued to Israel’s TV Channel One. Since 1953, on every Independence Day, a special award known as the Israel Prize is given to individuals and sometimes to organizations that have made an outstanding or unique contribution to the State of Israel. The names are published well before Independence Day, and those who know people to be honored kvell (delight) with the recipient.

This year Professor David Weiss Halivni received the award in the field of Talmud. I first met the professor, who is also a rabbi and holds a PhD and numerous honorary doctorates, when I entered rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York in the fall of 1964. In those years, we were blessed with professors who had studied in European yeshivot and universities before World War II. Some young men who survived the tragedy that befell our people during the Holocaust and who in their pre-war lives had achieved an incredible mastery of the Talmud, joined the JTS faculty. The stories of their lives, their endurance, and their survival deepened our appreciation and admiration of these unique individuals.

Rabbi Halivni was born in the Polijaner Rebbe’s house in Poljana Kobelecky, a village in the Carpathian Mountains. He was raised from the age of four in his grandfather’s house in Marmaros Sighet. At the age of 15, he received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Gross of the Sighet Yeshiva. His cheder-mate, Elie Wiesel, writes of R. Halivni in his 1995 book, Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea: [1995]:

I would have loved to have deserved the friendship of young Dovid’l…, grandson of the legendary Reb Shaye Weiss. A precocious Talmudist, he seemed destined for a dazzling future. Unfortunately, he was even more studious

than I. In our community, he was the child prodigy, impossible to tear away from his books. (pp. 45–46).

1996. Halivni’s book, The Book and the Sword: A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction, appeared in 1996.¹ I studied its pages carefully and wondered if anyone had ever checked records at Yad Vashem, including the Arolsen I microfilms, for him. I would see R. Halivni on his frequent visits to Israel. When he told me that nothing had been checked at Yad Vashem, I asked his permission to look into the archives for information about his family. Thus began a decade-long search that has led to many discoveries, along with some disappointments.

In his book, R. Halivni writes of his grandfather, Rabbi Isaiah (Shaye) Weiss, and alludes to his grandfather’s brother, R. Halivni’s great-uncle, Rabbi Leib Weiss from Tyachevo. After mentioning Rabbi Weiss, R. Halivni adds parenthetically (p. 25):

…whose picture on the ramp in Auschwitz has been reproduced, unidentified, in many books on the Holocaust, including the Encyclopedia Judaica [vol. 8, page 880].

This image appeared courtesy of Yad Vashem, meaning that the photograph was part of Yad Vashem’s vast photo collection. When I read R. Halivni’s words, I literally ran to the institution’s photo archives department with the astounding news. We now had identified the anonymous Jew on the ramp at Auschwitz. Since German soldiers took the photographs secretly, often to show the humiliation of Jews, it is extremely rare to know the identity of the person in the picture. This led to further identifications by R. Halivni and his wife that have enabled formerly anonymous Jews once again to become real people with real names.

Elsewhere in his book R. Halivni writes:

…until February 1945, when we were transferred to Ebensee, part of the Mauthausen complex in Upper Austria, when the Gross-Rosen camp was liquidated and occupied by the Russians. (p. 70)

The original Mauthausen prisoner admission cards are in the Yad Vashem archives. Upon checking the list and finding R. Halivni’s name, I photocopied his prisoner card for him.

1. Halivni also writes:

I do not say Kaddish (prayer for the dead) for my sister Channa Yitte or my father, because I do not know when they died. But I do remember them during the Yizkor (memorial) service. (p. 32)

Two pages later he writes that his father was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. I learned that from Auschwitz his father was taken to Warsaw to clean up the rubble and from there, on his way to Dachau, he stepped off the wrong side of a train, was attacked by SS dogs, and died from his wounds.

My initial searches took place in June 1997, well before Yad Vashem had digitized the Arolsen I collection. Using the alphabetical surname reference, I ordered microfilm reel W171 to search for Bezalel Wiedermann, R. Halivni’s father. The story R. Halivni had been told and believed for many years turned out to be incorrect. This is a reminder to all researchers that eyewitness accounts must be corroborated before we accept them as factual. According to the Original Dachau Entry Register, Zaler Wiedermann was on the death march from Warsaw just as his son was told. However, Zaler arrived in Dachau on August 6, 1944, where he subsequently died on March 11, 1945. I immediately faxed the two pages containing the four entries for his father to R. Halivni at Columbia University in New York City where Halivni served as Littauer Professor of Talmud and Classical Rabbinics in the Department of Religion. After all these years, R. Halivni now has the true story of what happened to his father, as well as his actual yahrzeit (date of death), courtesy of Arolsen I.

Continuing the search, I ordered Arolsen I reel W115. In conversation, R. Halivni once commented that, with all the trauma of the time, he did not remember the exact year of his birth—was it 1927 or 1928? I make reference to this in my article [see Bronstein, “Age Makes a Difference,” that appeared in AVOTAYNU, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, Winter 2007]. The Arolsen listings contained both dates for his year of birth. On the upper right of some of the cards, next to the word ‘File’ various references appeared: OCC 8/12, OCC 8/19, OCC 15/145, for example. These would be a key to further discoveries when some Arolsen II material arrived at Yad Vashem early in 2008.

Curiously, one of the numerous Arolsen listings for R. Halivni records him as Daniel Weisz. This reminds us that our research of these documents calls for some flexibility when dealing with names; sometimes the name may not be accurate, but other information on the card may indicate that this is indeed the person we are seeking. The Arolsen I entries trace R. Halivni’s movement from Gross-Rosen to Wolfsberg; to Ebensee, a Mauthausen sub-camp; to Munich, and then, after liberation, sailing to New York on the SS Marine Perch on January 28, 1947. Arolsen records often list the name of the ship as well as the address where a Holocaust survivor was headed. I found numerous cards in Arolsen I for R. Halivni’s wife, Tzipora Hager, as well as members of her family.

Some questions remained unanswered. I found no references in Arolsen I for either his sister, Channa Yitte, or his aunt, Etel. In The Book and the Sword, R. Halivni writes that when he jumped off the train upon arrival in Auschwitz, his aunt called out to him in Yiddish, “May the Torah that you have so diligently labored on protect you.” (p. 37). Perhaps this blessing helped carry him through what he was to face until liberation. R. Halivni knew that Mengele sent his mother and grandfather to the left (to death), but what about his 20-year-old sister and his 29-year-old aunt? Was it possible that they were sent to slave labor camps? Nothing we found in Arolsen I told us anything about them.

20. Halivni and I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the Arolsen II records. The incredible work of Paul Shapiro, along with a few dedicated others, finally led to the release of this inestimable resource. To say that we were not disappointed is an understatement. I looked first for those names for whom we had found nothing in Arolsen I: Channa Yitte Weiss/Wiedermann and Etel/Ethel Weiss. Unfortunately, I found no references for Channa Yitte, but I did find an entry for Weiss, Etel, stating “Eingeliefert am: 20.7.1944 von KL. AU, – KL-Stutthof Kartei.” R. Halivni’s aunt Etel had been transferred from the Auschwitz forced labor camp to Stutthof on July 20, 1944. She had survived the selection upon arrival at Auschwitz. The card listed her correct date of birth and gave her Stutthof prisoner number, 53048. The file included her Stutthof prisoner envelope containing her prisoner card, which was exactly the same as the Mauthausen prisoner card except for the name of the concentration camp. Until then, I did not know that the Nazis had used a standard prisoner card. On it is listed name, address, religion, languages spoken, as well as color of hair and eyes, type of nose, posture, whether the person had any criminal convictions, and so forth. However, these items remained unanswered on the card. Inside the envelope was an additional sheet of paper stamped by the Red Cross after the war. It contained all the questions found on the card now complete with answers and was signed by Etel Weisz herself. It bore no date. Her name did not appear on any survivor lists, and we were unable to find an exact date of her death.

I then checked Arolsen II for the known family names I already had. Again, R. Halivni is listed as Daniel Weiss on a card, which also bore his mother’s name. On another, his occupation is reported as Lehrling (student). I found a listing for his mother, Fanny, with her parents’ names, Shayeh and Bluma nee Festinger Weiss, the year of her birth, time of deportation, and the notation “verstorben” (deceased). Another listing for his father bore the names of his parents, David and Ella nee Vogel Wiedermann, and traced his places of residence during the war, his deportation to Auschwitz, and finally his death in Dachau. Although that card did not bear his date of death, another listing was a death report bearing his Dachau number and date of death.

Our next major discovery combined information from Arolsen I and Arolsen II. As stated above, in Arolsen I, I found cards with numbers in the upper right corner. With the indefatigable help of Yad Vashem staff member Leah Teichthal, I tracked down File OCC 8; it was a list of those who arrived at Gross-Rosen. The title page stated that it contained two Totenliste (death lists). Although I noted the futility of checking any further, since the contents states “death lists,” Teichthal insisted on continuing. “If there is a reference, we must check it out. Maybe the title page is not complete. You never know.” More than an hour later, after scrolling through more than 100 two-columned pages typed on both sides of a list of deceased prisoners, we came to a section headed “Jews who were still alive in Riese on 16.2.45.” R. Halivni’s name appeared on the reverse side of page 175. Leah was right. One must persevere, and working with Arolsen II records takes considerable time.

In May of this year, I met with R. Halivni at the Jewish National and University Library on the Givat Ram Campus of Hebrew University to discuss the information that we accumulated from the Yad Vashem Archives over the past 12 years. He began by saying that the credit for anything that we uncovered goes first and foremost to Yad Vashem. R. Halivni acknowledges the importance of Yad Vashem’s records:

Had it not been for Yad Vashem, I never would have had what I now know. I lost my entire family, and from 1944 until I married Tzipora in 1953, I was totally alone. The rec-ords we found provide some consolation. The names are recorded for posterity.

1. Halivni has been interviewed innumerable times over the past few months. He mentioned that one correspondent had asked him if he had documentary proof that he was where he said he was during World War II (!). The Yad Vashem records stand as an everlasting testimony against the slander of malevolent Holocaust deniers. Commenting on his identification of the photograph of his great-uncle Rabbi Leib Weiss from Tyachevo on the ramp of Auschwitz, R. Halivni said that one can see so much pain in the pictures, but when you have a name, you have a real person with whom you can identify.

The existence of my aunt Etel and my sister, Channa Yitte, are only memories. The younger the victims, the more important it is to restore their memory to give them immortality. I have children and grandchildren, and there will be future generations. But not for my sister; I only hope that someone could provide me with information about her fate.

While unable to find answers to all the questions and feeling frustrated because of that, I was able to retrieve for my teacher and mentor vital information about both his family and himself, documentation locked away for years. The search for any information on Channa Yitte Weiss/Weidermann, however, continues.

Note

David Weiss Halivni, The Book and the Sword—A Life of Learning in the Shadow of Destruction. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1996.

Rabbi Shalom Bronstein, a native of Philadelphia, has resided in Jerusalem since 1986. A member of the Israel and Philadelphia Jewish Genealogical Societies, he wrote the Israel chapter for the Avotaynu Guide to Jewish Genealogy. He is deputy director of the Paul Jacobi Center of the International Institute for Jewish Genealogy.