Projects

Sderot | Remembering Wolf Galperin, Who Passed Away last December at Age 97.

January 15th, 2025 – Wolf was a Holocaust survivor. His daughter was very grateful for the visit from Helping Hand Coalition for Israel during the mourning period (shiva), and thanked GAiN Germany for all the years of care and support to her dear father.

Here is Wolf’s story during the Holocaust:

Because they were Jewish, Wolf and his family were driven to the ghetto in Kaunas, Lithuania. The day came when the ghetto was to be disbanded and all surviving residents be killed or sent to a 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 burden with them. They were soon transported in 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, they came to the quarantine camp A. “There I made order, made sure that everyone gets the same ration of bread, that everyone behaves calmly and no quarrel breaks out. The children gradually got 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 survived by their discipline in the war. Wolf was honored for the salvation of the children, they still keep in contact with each other. On the wall in his living room hangs a certificate that his children have given him.

May his memory forever be a blessing.