Senek Rosenblum
Senek Rosenblum (born December 23, 1935 in Żychlin , Poland ) is a German author . In his book "The Boy in the Closet" he describes how he survived the Holocaust as a seven-year-old Jewish boy .
Life
Senek Rosenblum is one of the few hundred children who survived the Warsaw ghetto . After the war he went to Munich with his father Henryk . In 1955 Rosenblum emigrated to the USA . Two years later he came to Germany as an American occupation soldier. In 1960 he finally returned to Munich. There he met his wife Marta Semelman, a Jew from Rio de Janeiro , Brazil . Rosenblum set up a jewelry wholesale business and found his second home with his family in Munich.
Works
In the contemporary testimony "The boy in the closet", Senek Rosenblum describes from a child's perspective how he survived the Holocaust.
Senek is five years old when his happy childhood ends and horror begins: The Jewish family is locked in the ghetto of their Polish hometown Zychlin. Senek's father Henryk Rosenblum, as a Polish soldier and Jew, threatened in two ways, decided to flee to the Warsaw ghetto in the bitterly cold winter of 1942. He believes his family would be safe there. On the way to Warsaw, Senek experienced the greatest trauma of his childhood: he had to say goodbye to his terminally ill and beloved mother - forever, as he instinctively felt.
When father and son finally reach the long-awaited Warsaw ghetto after weeks in fear of the cold, they discover to their horror that they have fallen into a death trap. Little did Senek know that his resourceful father is preparing for the seemingly hopeless: As a smuggler of essential goods at the ghetto wall, he systematically plans his escape. And he succeeds in the impossible: he smuggles Senek and other relatives out of the ghetto, provides them with false papers and takes his son to his temporary hiding place.
So begins the odyssey of the now seven-year-old Senek, disguised as a Polish boy, in war-torn Warsaw . From now on, his father has to leave him alone for weeks, often months in the dubious care of paid Polish helpers, at the mercy of hunger and bombs. Senek is hidden by a young Polish woman in her tiny apartment, where he has to curled up in a closet for many hours a day in order not to be discovered. There his memories of his mother save him: in his mind's eye he sees the mother standing in a sunflower meadow. This summer meadow becomes a symbol of the dreams born out of torment. This is where Senek flees when he is locked in the closet for hours and the fear is almost unbearable. But he has to stay in the terrible hiding place - until his legs are almost crippled and he can barely walk. Then his father finally placed him with Polish farmers for a while. Although he learns to walk again with pain and the Polish peasant family only feed the "cripple" against payment, Senek is happy. He loves nature, the animals and above all the horses ... Senek Rosenblum survived the last months of the war sick and half starved while fleeing from marauding soldiers and Nazi henchmen - until his father finally found him again.
The book with the memories of Senek Rosenblum was the highlight of the Holocaust memorial service Yom Haschoa on May 21, 2009 in the Jewish cultural center in Munich in the main synagogue of Ohel Jakob .
literature
- Senek Rosenblum: The boy in the closet. A childhood in war. Club Bertelsmann, Rheda Wiedenbrück 2009
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Rosenblum, Senek |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 23, 1935 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Żychlin |