Rabbi Sinaj Adler

“After the war? After the war I arrived to Prague in July 1945. There was Přemysl Pitter, we were in Štiřín, there was a sanatorium. We spent about six weeks there. My brother was in Palestine, I also wanted to go to Palestine. From Prague we went to England. There I spent six months and from there I went to Palestine. It was in February 1946. I was in touch with my brother. – (He organized the journey to Palestine for you?) – Yes.”

“My name is Sinaj Adler. I was born July 11th 1928 in Prague. My father was born 1884 in Dobrá Voda in the Šumava Mountains. My mother was born in Germany. The father of my mother was a rabbi in Karlsruhe. My grandfather, the father of my father, came from the Šumava region, his family had been living there for four hundred years. I have the documents here. My father was a rabbi; he also studied history and philosophy in Switzerland.”

“In February 1945 I came from Auschwitz to Mauthausen. Alois Holub had already been there for four years. He was a communist. The Germans imprisoned communists in concentration camps. He heard that a boy from Czechoslovakia who was speaking Czech arrived there. When I came there he found me. Everyday he would bring me some bread, or little of food. (Quoting from his text:) He was arrested because of his communist activities. Although he was several years older than me, we became friends. And our friendship has lasted till today. Because he had already been in the camp for four years, his position was better than mine. He was bringing me bread or soup everyday, and under the circumstances which prevailed there, he really saved my life by that. I promised I would never forget what he had done for me, and I did not forget. Several years ago he received the decoration Righteous Among the Nations from the State of Israel.”

“My father was born in Dobrá Voda, he was teaching in Slovakia, and then in Germany and Switzerland. He met my mother in 1919 (?). My brother was born in 1920 in Prague. I had another brother, who was born in 1922 in Belgium. I was born in 1928 in Prague. My parents returned to Prague in 1927. I attended a school in Prague. When I was in the fifth grade, the Germans came to Prague. I studied till 1942, then the Germans banned studying and closed the schools. In 1943 the Germans sent us to a ghetto, to Terezín. My older brother arrived to Palestine in 1939. – (He was a Zionist?) – Yes, a Zionist. When he was nineteen, he arrived to Palestine. My second brother died in 1937.”