Holocaust victims' personal items found in attic
While repairing his neighbor’s leaky roof, handyman discovers photos, writings and a songbook believed to belong to a Slovakian Jewish family which perished during Holocaust.
The items, which were discovered roughly 70 years after they were hidden, were found by Imrich Girasek, who was repairing his neighbor’s leaky roof.
Girasek, a 46-year-old former soldier, explained in an interview with the Daily Mail that "the old roof needed to be checked, so I went there because the owners are my friends. They have owned the house since the 1960s. The owners of the house weren’t interested in the things, but I couldn’t bring myself to simply throw them away."
The photos were found next to empty suitcases from the same period. It is believe that the Gottschall family, like so many others, had hidden their most valuable and precious items believing that one day they would be able to come back for them.
However, like so many other Jewish families persecuted during the Holocaust, this simply wasn’t the case.
"I believe the things were initially stored in the suitcases," Girasek explained in the interview, "and then hidden in the attic, but that somebody searching for valuables must have taken them out and left them on the ground. The jewelry boxes were all empty. Somebody must have stolen the jewelry long ago."
The items found all date back to before 1942, the year that the first transportation of Jews from Presov took place. "Most likely they were all deported to a transportation camp," Girasek said.
Girasek has since donated the newly discovered items to the city’s Museum of Jewish Culture, who believe that the photos belong to the Gottschall family. Using their archival information and databases, the museum thinks that the items can be traced to the Slovakian family that was deported to a concentration camp.
"We have gone through the material and compared the photographs with historic photos from our archives," explained Gita Eckhausova, head of Presov’s Jewish Religious community, in an interview with the Daily Mail.
"It would appear that the items belonged to the family of Jewish Neolog cantor (prayer leader) Samuel Gottschall. According to our research, the people pictured in the photographs are Gottschall and his family, but we can’t be 100 percent certain."
According to their research, however, Gottschall may still have a living heir to claim the photos and items discovered in the attic. Although most of the Gottschall family was killed during the Holocaust, they believe he may have had a son who survived the genocide, Benjamin Bela Vojtech.
It is that believed Vojtech, who was a rabbi, and his wife were deported to Auschwitz in Poland during the Holocaust. It is believed that his wife passed away in Bergen-Belsen, however they believe Vojtech was liberated in 1945 and went to work as a communal rabbi in Prague.
There he remarried, had a child, and he and his family moved to Australia. Vojtech passed away from cancer in 1978, but his child is believed to be still alive, although his whereabouts are unknown.
Until the artifacts are claimed by one of Gottschall’s descendants or relatives show up, the items will be remaining with the city’s Museum of Jewish Culture.
Reprinted with permission from Shalom Life .
