Izak Elbaum

Izak Elbaum was born on June 17, 1916 in Bendzin, Poland. His parents, Israel Elbaum and Yitta Wohlhandler Elbaum, had seven children –– Shlomo, Reuven, Sheva, Mordechai, Pinchas, Esther and Izak. Before the war, Izak’s parents owned a candy factory on Berka Yusalevich Street. At the factory, Jews and non-Jews worked side by side, often singing while producing handmade candies. Each worker was given a bag of candy to take home on Fridays.

Although Bendzin had a large Jewish population with many organized Jewish activities, Izak remembers experiencing a lot of anti-Semitism. Before the war, he remembers dreaming of becoming a pioneer and moving to Israel.

When Germany invaded Poland on September 4th, 1939, Izak was still living in Bendzin. When the Germans arrived, they falsely accused the Jews of shooting at them from a synagogue. In response, the Nazis burned down the synagogue with everyone in it. The Germans quickly imposed a curfew and rules including requiring all Jews to wear a yellow star. In the same month that Germany invaded Poland, the Germans put Izak into forced labor in Schein’s factory in Slawkaw. At the factory, Izak had to carry barbed wire on his shoulders and bring the wire to freight cars. He was told by the Germans that if the work was not done well, he would be shot. Luckily, Izak was able to escape and ran away to Sosnowiec. From Sosnoweic, Izak and his friend Kalman Froimovitz tried to escape to the Russian occupied side of Poland. While crossing the River San in the middle of the night, their boat capsized and was pulled back to the German side. Izak was beaten badly and his eye was permanently damaged.  They were eventually able to cross the river by walking with their arms over their heads through a shallow part of the river. 

When they arrived at the other side of the river, the Russian soldiers did not believe that they were Jewish and instead thought that they were spies for the Germans. The soldiers brought Izak and Kalman to a prison. Right before they were put in a cell, Izak and Kalman found a man driving a truck delivering baked goods to the prison and paid him to let them hide in the truck to escape the prison. The driver took them to Lvov. 

Izak believed the war was nearly at its end so he left Lvov and headed to Crakow. On his way to Crakow he was captured and sent to Lagers (camps)  Blechhammer, Goelitz, Faulbruck, and Kz Lager Reichenbach, where he was finally liberated in May of 1945. After liberation he learned that his sister Sheva was alive in Ludwigsdorf. He went to Ludwigsdorf to find Sheva and also met his future wife, Sheindel. Sheindel and Izak married in 1947 and their son Steven was born in 1948 in a Displaced Persons Camp in Schwandorf, Germany. In 1949 they came to the United States through support of the JOINT Distribution Committee where they had two more children, Trudy and Danny. Their grandchildren, Ben and Sarah Gottesman, are graduates of the Heschel School.