Eliezer (Eli) was the eldest son to two holocaust surviving parents, who immigrated to Israel in the year 1946 with a movement called Aliyat Hanoar . Eli was born in Israel in 1951, and was raised in a traditional Jewish home, with the scars both his parents had from the holocaust, where they lost all of their relatives. I used to collect many things as a child , Eli explains. After the army, the hobby of collecting took a more serious turn, when Eli went to a school of antiques in Tel-Aviv, to study his passion. I loved hearing the bible stories that my father would read every week on the Sabbath. My father was the youngest of six children to his father, Eliezer, whom I was names after. I was greatly fascinated with the story my father told me about his grandfather, Pesach Hollander, who died in his home at the beginning of the holocaust. My father was the last to stay home when his five older siblings were sent away to the camps. Pesach, who was on his death bed, gave my father the traditional blessing of the sons, since he was the last one left. When he was done blessing him, he turned around and died. Every Passover (which in Hebrew is called Pesach), my father would tell us the story of grandpa Pesach over and over, and that the blessing he gave him, he believed, was the reason he managed to survive the horrors of the war. My father remembered that grandpa Peach was buried somewhere on the edge of the Jewish cemetery in Auschwinchin. In 1986, I decided to go to Polandand visit Auschwinchin. When I got there, I discovered that the Jewish cemetery was still standing, although it was badly damaged by the Nazis. There were broken tombstones all around me, and the gate that used to carry a Davids Star was now collapsed unto the ground. On my way out, looking through my camera, my eyes stumbled upon a broken tombstone lying on the ground. It carried my name: Hollander. When I got closer, I saw that it was indeed Pesachs tombstone, which carried his fathers name as well – Eliezer. My name, that has been in my family for generations. Soon after, I found out that the Polish government wanted to completely destroy that cemetery, in order to build on that land. I took the matter to court in Holland, and eventually the decision was made to reconstruct the Jewish cemetery as a reserved location, that can never be demolished.
Category: #CATEGORYLINK#
Return to Results