From Shedlitz to safety : a young Jew's story of survival

From an eyewitness I learned that all of my family were taken to the concentration camp in August 1942. We estimated that the probable date of their murder was the 12th of Elul. This is the date I have kept yahrtzeit for my entire family.

Over the years, I managed to make contact with a few cousins who had survived. One day in the 1960's a second cousin, Chana Biegeleisen, contacted me. She had heard that a Goldman from Shedlitz was alive and living in Brooklyn. When she came there with her husband, Berel, she looked in the Brooklyn telephone directory. Naturally, there were many Goldmans. Then she spotted the name Shimon and remembered that there were Shimons in her family. (I was named for my maternal grandfather). Of all the Goldmans in the directory, she tried my number first. We have been in contact ever since and they have attended all our simchas. Later, Chana's sister, Fella and her husband Moshe Bienstock, came to the United States as well. These two were the only family with whom I have had regular contact.

Some years ago, I discovered there were a few first cousins who had survived, Kalman Apelblatt and Yidel Herman. Yidel also had a sister, Sima, in Melbourne, Australia. Kalman had apparently been a schochet in Sweden. Both he and Yidel were then living in Israel. I made a special trip to Israel and we enjoyed a bittersweet but memorable family reunion.