Haim Hermann Zudkowitz

Haim was born in Chemnitz in 1921 to Moritz and Masza (nee Malinsky) Zudkowitz. Until 1937 the family lived at Zietenstrasse 40 A. His parents were Polish citizens who had settled in Chemnitz. During the 1920's, this city was a thriving city full of art and culture. With the help of its prosperous industry and commerce, it grew to compete with Dresden and Leipzig as one of the main urban centres in Saxony. As a result of local industrial success, most notably in mechanical engineering and the textile industry (Haim's family was part of this industry, with branches in Lodz, Chemnitz and Milano), Chemnitz was increasingly glorified throughout Europe as the “Saxonian Manchester”. With more than 3,500 members before WWII, the Jewish community was one of the largest in Germany at that time and played an important and active role in shaping the life and development of the town.

Haim had a happy childhood and excelled in sports. He was an avid skier. In the winter, when it snowed, all he had to do was put on his skis near their house and off he went!

Things gradually changed for the worse economically. His father and the family lost all they had, first in the great depression of 1929 and then in 1933, when the Nazis gained power and Germany’s economy was in a mess. Haim was expelled from school in 1936. He worked for a while (until April 1938) in an office of a sock factory which belonged to a Jewish Industrialist named Paretzky, in Chemnitz.

Between May and October of 1938, Haim was in "Hachshara" (Jewish agricultural training) in "Ellgut" in Steinau b/Neisse, Upper Silesia, run by Senta Josephtal. During this time he returned to Chemnitz once with his friend Gideon Mushinsky for the Holidays to visit his family. In the meantime the Poles announced that all Polish citizens living outside Poland should return to Poland by a certain date if they did not want to lose their Polish citizenship (In October 1938 the Polish government actually revoked passports of all Jews who had lived outside of Poland for more than five years, thus rendering them stateless).

On October 28, 1938, the German police came to the place of the "Hachshara" and the group was taken to a prison in Gleiwitz where many Polish Jews had already been concentrated. After four hours there they were released, taken to the Polish border and ordered to cross the border to Poland at once. Don't dare return to Germany, they were told, you know what will happen to you.

In the town across the border Haim decided to telephone his family in Lodz and go stay with them. Jews in this town took him to their home and he stayed there a while. He also met his parents and his brother Leon there, who had been expelled from Chemnitz and arrived by train. Two days later a train was rented to take them and many others to Lodz. Since November 1938 he stayed with his parents and brother Leon at his grandmother's house in Lutomiersk, near Lodz.

It was already winter, and he joined members of the family who belonged to Maccabi Lodz who went skiing in Zakopane (a town in southern Poland at the feet of the Tatra Mountains informally known as the winter capital of Poland) for a day. Maccabi Lodz were impressed with his skiing skills and suggested that he return to Zakopane as a ski instructor. Happy about the idea he began to prepare for the job.

However, his friend from Chemnitz Yekutiel Federmann traced him, talked with him and with his father Moritz and urged Haim to contact the Jewish Agency in Lodz, to arrange for his Aliyah to Palestine. In the meantime Haim's brother Leon was sent to London via Danzig in a children transport. This was after the terrible events of “Crystal Night” (9th/10th November 1938), which marked the onset of real atrocities.

In February 1939 he left his parents and brother in Lutomiersk and boarded a ship to Eretz Israel (Aliya B - illegal immigration). He did not know then that he would never see his parents and the other members of the Malinskys (his mother's side) again. Many years passed before he heard about their bitter end - they were all sent to the Chelmno death camp in July 1942. The last he heard from his parents was through the Geneva Red Cross on March 3, 1941. It was sent from the Lutomiersk Ghetto.

Haim was instructed to catch a specific train from Warsaw. He arrived there by train from Lodz, toured the city a little and in the evening boarded the train. On it were 200 or 300 young people, about ten from Germany and the rest Polish. They sat in locked wagons, were not allowed to get off anywhere, all the way from Warsaw, through Austria, until they arrived in Naples.

In Naples the group was put in hotels, boys and girls apart. They were not allowed to leave the hotel. However, Haim, who was so excited about being in Italy, it was a dream come true, felt that he just had to take a walk in Naples. He and some guys bribed one of the guards with cigarettes and money, and told him they had girl friends in the other hotel. He was a nice guy and said that in about half an hour he would be replaced and would then enable them to leave. He kept his promise and even took them on a sightseeing tour of the city!

They boarded the ship, "Atratti" which slowly left the harbour.

The ship arrived in Palestine on February 20th 1939. From the ship they were taken by boats to the coast of Nahariya (There is a sign there commemorating the event). The first night he and some of other guys stayed in the house of a widow of an "Ezel" fighter, whom the British had executed.

It is possible that all this was organized by the Revisionists.

He first lived in Tel Aviv with his uncle and aunt Avraham and Sophie Zudkowitz, earning his living (and also helping his uncle as much as he could). His first employer was a dental technician, for whom he collected debts from the customers. Then he found another job - driving a bicycle and distributing the Zionist weekly "Juedische Welt Rundschau" (JWR) amongst olim of German origin. (The first issue appeared on March 7, 1939. The JWR was written and edited in Jerusalem, printed in Paris and circulated in over 60 countries, including Palestine).

Sometimes he was left with several copies of the newspaper, and sold them for pennies to vendors at the Carmel Market, who used them to wrap fish etc. With this extra money he was able to afford the trip to Kibbutz Gesher in the Jordan Valley, where his friend from Chemnitz Mio (Miodezky) was staying at the time. It appealed to him and he decided to join the Kibbutz, after five months in Tel Aviv.

He was once sent from Gesher to work in Kibbutz Givat Brenner for a while. This is where he met Erica for the first time. She entered his tent to ask something and they began to talk. He liked her very much. She was as tall as he, beautiful, spoke German, and was so different from the rest of the girls he had met in the kibbutz.

Haim met Erica again when she moved to nearby Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov. He was in poor health, as he had typhoid fever in a severe form, and was saved (again) by his friend Yekutiel Federmann, who brought him medication from Egypt. The conditions in Old Gesher (now in Transjordan) were harsh - before he moved in with Erica he shared his shack with a snake he named Cleopatra - he worked in the Gesher Quarry and in the Naharayim Electricity plant, and the temperatures in summer were unbearable.

Erica and Haim got married in Moshava Kinneret on 16.4.43. They could afford one wedding ring, which Erica has worn ever since. They had two witnesses - one was Yuval Tal- Temkin (Hila's uncle), and finally they had an omlet and a malt beer before Haim had to return to work.

They were given a room of their own, where most of the furniture was made of wooden citrus boxes. Erica worked in the bakery, which was bearable because it was a night shift.

As Haim had enough of kibbutz life and its hardships, they left Old Gesher in 1944 and moved to Haifa.

In Haifa he continued his job as a "Noter", which he had begun in the Kibbutz, and spent most nights in the Notrim Base in the "Haifa Bay". He continued his "Notrut" until the end of the British Mandate, simultaneously studying in the evening at the Technion and doing odd jobs given to him by the employment agency.

He later started to work at the Feuchtwanger Bank (through the help of Yekutiel Federmann, his friend), which was the beginning of his long and successful career as banker.

In March 1984, after having managed the Carmel Branch of the First International Bank of Israel (FIBI) in Haifa, Haim was chosen to establish FIBI's Zurich branch. After retiring, he decided to settle in Switzerland. He and Erica moved from Zurich to Winterthur, where they lived in a beautiful rented apartment (Wingertli-Strasse 31) for the next 23 years. They visited the family in Israel once a year, and the family visited them, sometimes sharing wonderful vacations in the Engadin - hiking and skiing.

Following Erica's hospitalization in February 2011, Rina, who arrived immediately, came to the conclusion that Erica and Haim cannot continue their independent and isolated life without special care assistance, and moved them to the Hugo Mendel Heim in Zurich, and began preparations for their transfer to Israel - after 27 years of absence.

Ronnie and Rina brought them back to Israel on June 23rd, 2011, to a nursing home in Ramat Hasharon. About 2 1/2 months later Haim passed away in his sleep.

He often said that his motto in life was: "Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst."

By Rina Talmore, his daughter.