Azriel Dansky from Haifa survived the Holocaust and celebrated a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 87 • An inspiring story

time travel

It all started one day in 1976, when Katrina Dansky Went out for errands in the Carmel center in Haifa. Suddenly her ears picked up the Slovak language she knew well from her youth. Near her stood a small boy talking to an elderly woman.

Intrigued by the actions of the two in Israel, she turned to them Katrina in Slovak "This is my grandson," said the woman. "He lives in Israel with his mother, my daughter. My sister, The hysteria, lives in Nahariya." Katarina's senses sharpened at the name. "Is this The hysteria From Loshontz?" she asked hesitantly. Shocked by the positive answer, she exclaimed excitedly: "She was my son Azriel's kindergarten teacher in 1942!!".

That same evening they drove Katrina and Alexander with their son to meet with the kindergarten teacher The hysteria in Nahariya For about three hours Azriel listened with his mouth open to their conversation and to the kindergarten teacher's story about the long time he was alone in Hungary under her protection, in the midst of hell. Fortunately, he had time to equip himself with a recording device.

The random meeting in the streets of Haifa that resulted in an exciting encounter like no other between the family and the kindergarten teacher and answers to countless questions about his experiences in the Holocaust, is a turning point that shaped the rest of Azriel's life. Like many of his generation, his parents said almost nothing about what happened and now the recording has left in his hands a moving authentic record in Hungarian and Slovak which he later translated.

The mission of his life

With the help of the information, names and places mentioned by the kindergarten teacher, he asked to trace the events. During the last two decades, he cracked his life's mission: to investigate in depth the trajectory of his survival in the Holocaust.

Countless times he traveled to Hungary and Slovakia, met with historians and Holocaust researchers and rummaged through the local archives, the details of the information kept piling up. The story of his life that is brought before you was built by him based on the details he compiled in that meeting and in his later research.     

This is the unimaginable story of a handsome and rather playful young boy who survived the hardships of the Holocaust and grew up in one against his will. A story of determination and hope intertwined with countless coincidences, luck and miracles that accompanied his life's journey alongside a loving and missional family. Upon his arrival in Israel, he established a prosperous enterprise and a glorious family whose branches continue to flourish and educated his children in the values ​​of Zionism.

Azriel Dansky's story is a source of strength and inspiration for revival, reaching out to the weak and loving people, which are so important especially in these difficult days. 

"In any situation, if it's hard for you, remember what I went through as a small child in the Holocaust and I won. Hold the torch of hope and faith in your heart. The nation of Israel lives!!!"

Roots in Czechoslovakia and Hungary

Alexander Danzinger Born in Hungary, he was orphaned as a child and adopted with his brother by his uncle. Both brothers were employed by the uncle in the family leather factory. When he was about 26 years old he changed Alexander your last name Ledansky and moved to Czechoslovakia, where he lived with a relative in the city of Banska Bystrica and worked in a store that sells leather and sews limbs for shoes that she owns.

The aunt's attempt to match Alexander to Katrina, the daughter of family members Genzler, a traditional Jewish family with whom he was friendly, successfully immigrated. In August 1935, the two married and settled in the city of Banska Sistrica. Meanwhile, Alexander He bought the relative's store and continued to work there. Two years later, on August 24, 1937, their only son was born, Peter (Patrick) and below – Azriel.

Dad is gone

The father, who never acquired a formal education, excelled in his business thanks to his good senses and the life experience he acquired. The business prospered and gave the Dansky family financial well-being, but not for long.

when was Azriel At the age of three, the local parliament enacted racial laws and discrimination against Jews began. With the division of Czechoslovakia, laws and restrictions were enacted against Jews that included persecution and nationalization of property. Thousands of Jewish businesses were nationalized, including Alexander's store and its ownership was transferred to a neighbor shoemaker who was a member of the fascist party. Alexander, the owner of a thriving business, reluctantly became a laborer in his own shop.

One day in the spring of 1941, his wife Katrina informed him when he returned from work that two detectives were looking for him. His keen senses led Alexander to make a decision to disappear immediately, a fateful decision that changed the rest of Asriel's and his parents' lives. He left his wife a large amount of cash and instructions on how she should act. In order not to make it difficult for 4-year-old Azriel with a sudden separation from his father, he was sent to his friends that day.

caught at the border

Alexander He managed to cross the border when he went to his family in Miskolc (Viszkots) in northeastern Hungary. But after successfully crossing the barbed wire fence, he suddenly encountered a Hungarian soldier. Despite his torn clothes, which indicated that he had been hurt, he confidently asked him for the address of a nearby hostel. To his surprise, the Hungarian soldier replied that this was also what he was looking for...

That's how Alexander, a refugee in Hungary, found himself, walking in torn clothes next to a Hungarian soldier, when they looked together for a place to sleep. Finally, when they located a hostel late at night, it turned out that only one room was available. When asked if they were willing to share the room for one night, they unanimously answered in the affirmative.

When they arrived at the room, the soldier said that it was clear to him that Alexander was an illegal immigrant, but Alexander managed to navigate the conversation and began to tell about his relatives in Hungary. Fortunately for him and by a rare coincidence, when he mentioned his aunt's name, it surprisingly turned out that the soldier knew her. The meeting between the two, which could have ended differently, became friendly.

In the morning the soldier instructed Alexander how to get to his aunt's house safely and he set off. When he arrived at the uncle's house and told his stories, he was reprimanded for his sudden departure from the house. It turned out that Hungary did not know at that time about what was happening in Czechoslovakia, even though the distance was not far from the border. The family was amazed to hear from him about the persecution and deportation of Jews. Later it became clear to him that those relatives had perished two years later. 

From his uncle's house, Alexander continued by train to Budapest, where he found work as a shoemaker. In exchange for his wages, he immediately rented an apartment in Buda across the Danube, which he designated as a hiding place for the family. After settling down, he sent a telegram to his wife and instructed her to take their little son and leave everything without delay, to cross the border. At the train station in Budapest he will wait for them on the same day every week, from morning to evening.

"It was the summer of 1942, a few weeks after my father disappeared and I was 5 years old at the time," recalls Azriel. "Mother padded herself with cash that father had prepared before his escape and we set off with mother carrying me on her back. Her best friend joined us. Even before we crossed the border we were caught on the Slovak side. We were released thanks to 5,000 kroner in which mother bribed the guards."  

The Witch, a fateful séance

"When we returned to my hometown, they advised my mother to meet with an ob woman, a caller who deals in séances," he says Azriel. "At the meeting, my mother was asked to bring up the image of her father, who had died two years before. On the table covered with a white tablecloth, there was an upside-down cup with letters scattered around it. The witch's questions were addressed to my grandfather's soul. The cup that was placed on the map went through the letters from one to the other, and the witch assembled the answer from them. She said to my mother out loud:

"Don't be afraid, try crossing the border again. In the forest you will meet a person who will help you cross the border..." If my mother hadn't told me this, he says, I wouldn't have believed it... Strengthened by the séance, my mother offered her friend to join but this time the friend got cold feet. Mother and I set off."  

In the forest, in torrential rain

"We entered the forest in the dark of the night with my mother carrying me on her thin back. It was pouring down rain. How was she not afraid of the wild animals roaming in the forest? I guess at moments like these you get emotional. Suddenly a man emerged from the trees, just as the séance had predicted, and said in Hungarian that he would bring us to the district we wanted .

We accompanied the man that father sent us. He smuggled us across the border through the dark forest and brought us to a house in a village in Hungarian territory. The farmer, who knew of our expected arrival, received us with a beautiful hospitality, fed us and lodged us in the barn. The farmer put our clothes and shoes wet from the rain to dry by the stove. We covered ourselves with straw and fell asleep in the blink of an eye.

I remember that in the morning I couldn't get my feet into the shoes, which shrunk while drying them at the foot of the stove. Cutting the ends of the shoes made it possible to insert my feet and we went on our way."  

An exciting reunion in Budapest

"From there, mother and I continued to the city of Loshoncs in Hungary, where my father's aunt lived. She welcomed us with joy and was amazed to hear our story about what was happening in Slovakia. We stayed at her house for several days and made our way to Budapest, a distance of about 120 kilometers, to meet father on the appointed day.

Immigrants in Hungary were at that time a target for whistleblowing and extradition. Since I didn't know how to speak Hungarian, mother was worried that it might betray us and gave me a sleeping pill so that I would sleep during the train ride. At the train station we met with father. A very exciting meeting after a few weeks in which we did not know what became of him.

Dad, living in constant fear, rented an apartment on the top floor in a remote area ahead of time and arranged for fake documents for the three of us. When we arrived, he made sure Mom dyed her black hair blonde, to match her new identity.

Refugees in Hungary

"I remember that we were invited to lunch at my mother's family home in Budapest. I remember the large and impressive house. When we finished eating, the father of the family, a doctor by profession, said that we could not stay at their house because the fact that I do not speak Hungarian could endanger all of our lives.

Father arranged ahead of time for a paid hiding place for me with a Jewish family in Budapest. Their demand was that whenever my parents want to visit me, they must inform them ahead of time. I remember that in the yard of the house there was a septic tank where the people of the house defecated, I was afraid of falling in... One night, it was in 1942, the father of the family woke me up and returned me to my parents. "The neighbors complain that the boy doesn't know Hungarian and it's dangerous," he said. Once again, my parents had to find a solution that would not arouse suspicion for their 5-year-old son."  

A 5-year-old boy in prison

Relying on a law that made it possible to adopt orphaned children who are in prisons in Hungary, the father came up with a creative idea: to send his son for adoption at the uncle's house in Luszent, Milka and William Rosenthal. In order to implement the plan, it was necessary to take care of putting the young boy in prison and hope that the adoption request would be approved.

Asriel repeats:

We sat on a bench not far from the prison. Father informed me that if I ask about my parents I should say that I don't know where they are. To the question of who "brought me" I have to answer - one of my uncles. Just before we parted with a hug, father equipped me with a bag of cherries that he had bought for me ahead of time.

Father, who must have been rattling fairly without me being aware of it, brought me to the door of the prison, rang the bell and disappeared to the other side of the road watching what was happening in hiding.

Today, when I recall this, the situation reminds me of the stories in the Bible, when Yocheved placed Moses in the ark, sent him past Hior and Miriam his sister watched what was happening from inside the nests and the end. 

"As a parent," says Azriel, "I don't know if I would be able to free my children from my father's embrace towards the unknown, especially since there is a war and we are being chased...it is very difficult."

About a bag of cherries and an innocent child

"The gate was opened, I was brought in and brought before an investigator. I was asked in Slovak my identity and I answered. When he asked where my parents were, I answered as my father instructed me, but when I was asked on the sly: "Who bought you the cherries?" I answered innocently: "Father..."

The little bag of cherries could easily have disrupted the plan and resulted in a different ending. But fortunately Azriel managed to get out of the matter and was left in prison. Remember that he was watered with black coffee and that food was given sparingly. It was the first time in his young life, and certainly not the last, that he felt hunger.   

Later, in the exciting meeting with the kindergarten teacher in Nahariya in 1976, she told the family that several 'adopted' children had come to the kindergarten. One of them, she said, told the interrogator at the prison that his father had bought him the cherries he had brought with him... "At that moment," says Azriel, "my parents burst out laughing and said: This is our Patrick..." 

Adopted child

"Meanwhile, the aunt succeeded Milka to complete the adoption process with the authorities and after some time I came to her as an immigrant, an adopted Slovak child. As part of the adoption conditions, I was required to report to the police station once a week. The aunt enrolled me in kindergarten. I liked to fall asleep on the carpet at the foot of the fireplace and after I fell asleep she moved me to the bed."

In the later meeting with the kindergarten teacher, Azriel learned that she worked as a secretary at a factory and at odd hours secretly operated a kindergarten for Jewish children. Over thirty years passed and she remembered him as a mischievous boy, not to mention a brat, who got along with all the wagoners around and pretty quickly learned to chat in Hungarian. She even remembered that on Purim he dressed up as a watermelon...

Later the kindergarten teacher was taken to Auschwitz. She managed to survive after going through the terrible experiments under the hands of Dr. Mangala and later immigrated to Israel.

About a year passed in kindergarten and when he reached the age of six, Azriel enrolled in the first grade. Once a week, the aunt's gentile helper continued to take him to report to the police in accordance with the adoption conditions.

Again behind bars

"In March 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary. Father, anticipating what was to come, sent a message to his aunt Milka through a messenger and asked them to leave everything and come hide in his apartment, but the aunt replied that she could not do this due to her obligation to the authorities to bring me to the police once a week."

One day in April 1944, there was a knock on the door of the uncles' house. It was a policeman who came to arrest 7-year-old Azriel. Immediately after, the aunt wrote an upset letter to his parents in which she informed them about their son's arrest. Later he found documents from which he learned that two months after his arrest, his uncles were taken and found dead in the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

"At the police station," continues Azriel, "I met children like me, "adopted" so to speak. They packed us into a carriage of a freight train and took us to a prison in Budapest."

The father received the letter about his son's arrest at the workshop where he worked. One of the workers, also Jewish, approached him when she saw him bitterly crying. He took her outside and there told her to her surprise that he was Jewish like her, he was living under a false identity and that his son's life was in danger.    

"Don't lose heart, I have a Hungarian police officer suitor," she said. "He will help you." Indeed, father passed her a photo of me and the officer was able to locate me in one of the city's prisons. The next day, when father asked to send me a package of candies through him, the officer had to inform that I had been transferred to another place and he did not know where. It turns out that I was transferred to a collection camp in a town in the suburbs of Budapest and from there to another camp, in Columbus. I only remember a fenced compound with a large yard where we were imprisoned children and men. I was dressed in a big man's shirt. We slept on the cold floor. To try and warm up a little with our body heat, we huddled together at night like sardines."

Alexander rescues his son from detention

"One day, by an unimaginable coincidence, a relative of my parents passed by the street where the prison was located and recognized me through the barbed wire fence and immediately informed my father of my whereabouts. My parents arrived immediately and we talked when the fence separated us. In a meeting with the kindergarten teacher in 1976, my father said that they returned home and later that day he returned there again, this time accompanied by my uncle, in his father's testimony on the tape he says:

"We arrived at the compound, it was a Sunday. Police, the Arrow Cross people are walking around, shooting Jews in the street. And I am wearing a long coat in the summer. I made contact with one of the girls through the fence and my child pointed at me. I gave her money through the fence and asked her to lift the child over the fence And so she did."

"I fell into my father's arms and we disappeared," recalls Azriel. "While trying, I asked my father to take my friend as well will clean. At the meeting in 1976, father said that he was afraid that we would all be caught and felt bad for being selfish and saving only me. The pangs of conscience haunted him until the day he died and he would wake up at night drenched in sweat. But the place was run by police and it was dangerous for us to walk around there. Father managed to steal me from under the noses of the Gestapo men and in an instant we disappeared."  

It was June 30, 1944. The next day the place was emptied. The residents of the compound were all sent as a shipment to the Bergen-Belsen camp. In the summer of 1944, shipments left for Auschwitz. About 600,000 people from Hungary's Jewry perished.

Until his last day, the father did not know that the group that was arrested in that place was the Kastner group, which was saved from the extermination camps. His son learned about it only in 2000, and a few years ago he even managed to locate his friend Janko.

Azriel, who by now had already mastered the Hungarian language, was reunited with his family in the hiding apartment. Throughout the war, they continued to hide under false documents as Christians.

After 77 years, wrapped in the Israeli flag

Later, when Azriel learned that a museum was going to be built in the place where he was imprisoned, he exerted pressure for a memorial plaque to be erected indicating the Holocaust. Finally, after his efforts bore fruit, he was invited to speak at the ceremony. On September 30, 2021, wrapped in the Israeli flag and wearing a kip on Hungarian soil, he spoke in Hungarian near the place where he was detained as a child in the Holocaust and told about his experiences.

"77 years ago the mayor trampled the Star of David," says Azriel. "I, as a Jew, was directed to Auschwitz. Today, another mayor of that town is proud of his friendship with that Jew. Not because of my blue eyes, but because of the military, technological and economic power of the Jewish, sovereign, independent and democratic State of Israel. To walk around with the state's flag in places God, this symbolizes the victory of the spirit of the Jewish people, to prove that we could not."

Hiding in a shelter

In the meantime, the bombings began and all the residents of the building where the Dansky family's hiding apartment was located had to take shelter in an underground shelter.

"Among the neighbors were an elderly couple, he worked as a judge," says Azriel. "His wife fell in love with me. She gave me a cross and taught me Christian hymns. Mother was afraid that my pants would fall down and then the fraud would be discovered..

In view of the situation, each building is required to send a representative to the GA course. The judge suggested that father go out as the representative of our building. Fearing that his forged papers would betray us all, it was agreed that my aunt, who speaks fluent Hungarian, would accompany father, who would be presented as his fiancee. At the end of the course, each representative is required to bring an identity card for the purpose of issuing Certification.

Father told the judge's neighbor that he had lost his ID card. Within minutes the judge settled the matter, without of course knowing the truth. In fact, the certification certificate for the GA course is the only non-falsified certificate that father had at that time."  

Under the ground in freezing cold, hungry and thirsty

Day after day, the shelling continues. The months of living underground in the winter days became difficult. Freezing cold, hunger and thirst. "As a GA man, father was allowed to walk around during the curfew," recalls Azriel. "Hunger and thirst became unbearable, father and one of the neighbors went out to look for food. They came back with lumps of snow that we used for drinking and lumps of meat that they cut from horse carcasses that they found in the fields.

One of the nights when they both went out to look for more food for the residents of the shelter, they were caught by a Hungarian soldier near the railroad tracks, but luckily, by presenting a certificate that they were representatives of the GA, the soldier's mind was relieved. If you bring me a bottle of vodka, the soldier promised, I will let you take food from the freight car parked here.

Fortunately, a few days earlier Dad had received a bottle of vodka from a local woman who was fixing her shoes and she didn't have any cash on her. The soldier was happy at the sight of the vodka and allowed them to go to the trailer and get food as promised. That night we won a cardboard shelter from Shimori Golash and we celebrated.

Despite the temptation, father's senses told him that it was not worth taking another risk, but the neighbor decided to go out alone once more to bring more food. He was caught by another soldier who did not know the 'arrangement', shot and killed on the spot.     

Before the occupation of Budapest, there were still Hungarians in Buda, in Pest there were battles between the Russians, Hungarians and Germans, trains no longer ran and the members of the Arrow Cross marched Jews they captured from the ghettos towards Austria, the death march. I was 7 years old, I remember dad took me, sat me on his shoulders. He had courage. I was 7 years old. We stood among crowds of people and saw how the mechans marched and those who were unable to walk were shot on the spot."

Immigrating to Israel - Haifa is a beautiful city

At the end of World War II, the father reopened a workshop from which the family lived until the immigration to Israel in 1949. In September 1949, Azriel boarded the youth immigration with his friends on the ship 'Gilila' which took them to the shores of Haifa. In the immigrant camp 'Shaar Aliya' on the outskirts of Haifa, the new immigrants were sprayed with DDT and quarantined for several days.

His parents, who stayed behind to take care of closing the business, arrived later and settled in an abandoned house in Ramla, where they lived in difficult conditions. One day Azriel's father showed up at the Shaar Aliya transit camp and sneaked his son through the fence before the quarantine days ended. His capture by the guard brought Azriel back to one of the harsh events of the Holocaust that were still fresh.   

After a period with the Tomer group at Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, the family reunited and lived in Kfar Bialik and later in the city of Haifa, which became a beloved home for Azriel. In Haifa, our beautiful city, he grew up, studied and worked, and raised his large family in which he is very proud. 

Later Azriel became a successful industrialist. He lectures on his experiences as a child in the Holocaust at Air Force Bases and as part of 'Remembrance in the Living Room'. In 2020, he was awarded the badge of the beloved of the city of Haifa.

Bar mitzvah at the age of 87, a dream come true

Azriel often tells his story in front of soldiers and in particular at the air force bases, a force in which he served proudly in the 50s. In 1954, when he was 17 years old, he participated in a solo flight and felt like the king of the world. He was later accepted to a pilot course but was expelled during it. He moved to the Ramat David base and maintains a close relationship with the officers and soldiers of his beloved army.   

Azriel sees great importance in conveying the message to the younger generation, that it is not taken for granted that we have the sovereign, independent and democratic Jewish state of Israel.

In one of his lectures at the air defense base in Haifa, Azriel said that he never got to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah. That's how the idea came up, which was initiated by Deputy Liron Gilad - To fulfill an old dream for Asriel. In preparation for the inauguration of a new synagogue at the base of the unit in Haifa, he was invited as a guest of honor. On March 26, 2024, Azriel and his immediate family were invited to participate in the ceremony alongside the officers and soldiers of the camp. The film was cut by the excited Azriel with his granddaughter and then he went to the Torah in the newly inaugurated synagogue. The exciting ceremony was presided over by Major Bmil Aharon Finkelstein.  

In the speech delivered by the excited Azriel at the beginning of the ceremony, in which I had the privilege of taking part, he excitedly thanked his hosts and said:  

"It's hard for me. A storm is brewing inside me. What's more - an earthquake with a magnitude of 10 on the Richter scale is brewing in me. To inaugurate a new synagogue in the base of Tshal, to be honored by cutting the ribbon - it's a big thing for me.

At the IDF base whose commanders and soldiers operate the Iron Dome which guarantees protection of the country's skies - doubly exciting. The Iron Dome - the soldiers are gold!    

At noon on Simchat Torah last year, we embarked on an existential war that has no justice than to return the kidnapped, the captives, the bodies of our martyrs, and to overthrow the rule of Hamas. to remove the threat from the borders of our country. We are still in the midst of an 'Iron Swords' war. The commanders and soldiers of the IDF fight fiercely. The fighters demonstrate resourcefulness, courage, sacrifice, heroism, striving for contact and adherence to the goal.

Unity and belief in the rightness of your way to fight according to the values ​​and norms of behavior that we were educated according to in the IDF - are an Iron Sheep asset for all of us.

I bow my head to the bereaved families who lost their dearest. The many fallen, with their bravery guarantee us life. We are all commanded to preserve their legacy.

We pray that the abductees who are dying in the Gaza tunnels will soon return to their families. They will return our martyrs to us in order to bring them to the grave of Israel.

For our soldiers who are fighting even at these moments in the south, in the north, in Judea and Samaria, for all the security forces wherever they are, we all pray that they return home safely. I wish that all levels of our society will be cohesive and united.
Our strength and power - in our unity.'

Azriel tells about his arrival at the air force base in 2023 to enlist ► Watch

singing bMemory in the living room ► Watch

A memory in the living room 2024

On May 1, 2024, Azriel was invited to tell his story at the Passage Center in Haifa in front of dozens of teachers as part of the 'Memory in the Living Room' project. In his well-structured lecture, the 87-year-old Azriel (Azi according to his associates) recounted his story during the Holocaust. Throughout it, as usual, he interspersed messages of the empowerment that is so significant these days and the planting of Zionism among his captivated audience.

the evening, which she hosted Estrogen will rise, Pedagogical leader at the Dr. Petha center Anat Hillel, the director of the center with a message of revival and hope. The evening was accompanied by a vocal ensemble from the Kiryat Yam Conservatory conducted by Ina Koretsky.