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Katznelson High School - ISRAEL

AHARON  SEIDENBERG

First Name: Aharon
Last Name : Seidenberg
Father's Name: Abraham 
Mother's Name: Pola 
Wife's First Name: Haya
Wife's Last Name: Shepon

Warsaw before WW2

 Warsaw is the capital of Poland and there were about 1.3 million citizens. The city was the second largest Jewish community in the world. The Jews started to settle down in Warsaw in the early 14 century and 1940 there were more than 350000 Jews in Warsaw.The Jews took a great part in Warsaw community and they influenced the culture of the city.

Warsaw was a beautiful city with famous buildings and Synagogues (such as he great Synagogue in Tlomackie Square)   and was called "The Paris of the North"

Warsaw during WW2

In the beginning of the war, (September 1939) the Germans started bombing Warsaw. After the attack the Germans conquered Warsaw and took over the city. After one year that Warsaw was under German control, the Jewish citizens in the city were transferred to the ghetto. The population in the ghetto was around 400,000 Jews.From 1940 to 1942, 83,000 Jews died of starvation.In September 1942 the Germans moved 265,000 Jews to Treblinka extermination camp and killed approximately 30,000 Jews. In 1943, there were only 80,000 Jews in Ghetto Warsaw.   In 1943, groups of Jews in Warsaw Ghetto got organized and decided to revolt against  the Germans, although they knew that the uprising in the Germans was doomed to failure.In 1944, the underground organization of the Polish army upraised against the Nazis. The Nazis killed more than 200,000 Citizens and Warsaw got destroyed.On January 17^th 1945, Soviet troops liberated and devastated Warsaw.

Warsaw Post World War II

When the war ended only 8000 Jews left in Warsaw.  Further more 80%-90% of the structures of the city got destroyed by the Germans.In the first year after the war, the Jewish population suffered from Anti-Semitic revelations and till the end of the year ,350 Jews were murdered.

After the war, Poland restored their independence and the communist regime that war intook the city started the rebuilding process and restoration of the old structures. Most of the structures were restored to their old form and new boulevard and streets were added to them.

Aharon Seidenberg

Aharon was born on the 17^th of March 1943, to Jewish parents Avraham and Pola, and he was an only child.His parents ran away from the ghetto on April the 10^th, before the Uprising of Ghetto Warsaw, and he said that they only took one pillow with them, for him. They hid in a house of Gentiles in exchange for money. One day, while his father was walking, with a box in his hands, a Polish cop demanded the box. Avraham refused and the Polish cop killed him.
So his mother started to walk in the city holding him in her hands.One time, she accidently walked into the Ghetto and an old woman offered to hide her in her house. One night, when Aharon cried loudly, the old woman suggested to his mother to speak to the concierge of the building who was in the Polish underground organization for help. When she went to the concierge, he told her that he could help the baby, but not her.

There is an orphanage in Warsaw where there is a record book stating the arrival of Aharon on 22^nd of May 1943 to the orphanage. In the description it is written that the concierge said that a woman gave him a baby near the central station in Jerusalem Boulevard. The church didn't suspect the baby was Jewish, because in those days, there were a lot of unwanted pregnancies and there were many orphan babies.

The record of Aharons' arrivale

                                                                

The orphange today

Memorialization of the Manager of the orphange

Aharon looked like a gentile baby, so a nun in the orphanage gave him the name Feliks (smart) Kajetuś (smiler).There were about 1400 kids in the orphanage and most of them were gentile. After 1.5 years, just before the Polish uprising, a family from Torun (which is between Warsaw and Gdansk) adopted him. While he was raised in the adoptive family, his mother constantly was trying to trace him.In 1946, she went back to Warsaw and talked with the nun in Aharons' orphanage, who told her that a family from Torun adopted him.At first, she asked the family to let her take Aharon back, but the family refused. Afterwards, a relative that was in the Russian Army threatened the family that he would shoot them, unless they let them take Aharon. His mother said that when Aharon first saw her again he clung to her. After that, Aharon and his mother went together to live in Lodz.

Aharon as a littile kid

In 1949, Aharon, his mother and her husband immigrated to Israel legally. When they first got off the ship to the shore, Aharon recalls that the local people came with an odd device and started to spray him and his family to disinfect them.After that experience, the family was sent to Sha'ar Aliya that was an immigration camp. They lived there for a few months before they moved to an apartment in Tel-Aviv. At that time, the knowledge about what had happened to the Jews in Europe was little. Moreover, the survivors weren’t ready to tell their tough stories.Aharon grew up in Tel-Aviv and went to Tel Nordau elementary school. In the beginning, he had difficulties to befriend with others in his class, because of the gap between a new immigrant and the locals.But because he was the only new immigrant in his class, they accepted him very warmly, and helped him fit amongst them.Since his mother cared for him dearly and helped him in whatever he needed the absorption process was rather easy.  

Aharon as a young boy

In the 1950s, the community in Israel didn't have enough interest or mental strength to listen to the horrible experiences of the Holocaust Survivors. The general population had to deal with the problems of being a new, small country. Therefore, a distance was created between the Survivors and the veterans.Only in the 1960s, people started listening to the stories because of Adolf Eichmann's trail. But even then, Aharon said that the survivors didn't want to talk about the horrors that they had been through. In the 1970s , the children of the survivors started spreading the stories of their parents.Aharon was recruited to the IDF in 1961, and he finished his reserve duty as a deputy commander in connection battalion.Afterwards, he got married to Haya and lived in USA for 7 years where he studied History of the Science. Aharon and Haya have 3 children.Aharon worked as a lecturer in Beit Berl Academic College, and had been the Manager of the Academic College for 24 years until 2008.

Aharon in Beit Berl Academic College

Aharon says that since then, he has just been enjoying his life!!!