July 20th, 2023 – Wolf is a survivor of the Holocaust. Being 96 years old, he still has to fight for his life today. He has already survived four heart attacks and an open heart surgery. A pacemaker supports him. He now lives with his family in Sderot.
Because they are Jewish, Wolf and his family were driven to the ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania during WWII. The day came when the ghetto was to be disbanded and all surviving residents killed or sent to the concentration camp. The adults were separated from the children. Wolf and his father stood on the side of the adults, and behind a barbed wire stood the last surviving 131 Jewish children, including Wolf’s twelve-year-old brother. They knew what would happen to the children. The father said to Wolf, “Go to the children, stay with your brother!” And Wolf said to him, “Yes, and when we die, I will hold his hand.” Wolf squeezed his way through the fence and succeeded to stay with the group of children, even though he was already 17 years old. His brother cried when he saw him and wanted him to leave. “It’s enough if I die, you shall live!” But Wolf stayed with the children and from then on he did everything possible to protect the whole group as well as possible.
On two trucks, the children were first brought to Landsberg am Lech, later to Dachau. He taught the children to stand straight in two rows, like little soldiers. In all the chaos and panic that reigned at the gathering and transport stations for Jews, these disciplined children had a positive impact. In Landsberg and Dachau, the group was neither separated nor touched. The soldiers were fascinated by them because they had no problems with them. They were soon transported on freight wagons to Auschwitz-Birkenau. When they arrived, Wolf placed his group exactly in two rows. Again, the Nazis were intrigued and left the group as a whole,which was then sent to the quarantine camp A. “There I maintained order, made sure that everyone gets the same ration of bread, that everyone behaves calmly and no quarrel breaks out”.
“The children gradually got sick with scarlet fever. One of the other inmates was a doctor. Every morning he and I tested the temperature. I put the sick kids on one side and the healthy ones on the other side of the barracks so they do not infect each other”. Even when Wolf was later separated from his children, all of them survived by their discipline in the war. Wolf was honored for saving the children, and they still keep in touch with him and each other. On the wall in his living room hangs a certificate that his children have given him.
