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Photo: Alex Kolomoisky
Korev, right, with his grandmother
Photo: Alex Kolomoisky

IDF officer becomes a Holocaust researcher

When he was in fifth grade, 2nd Lt. Noam Korev found a wooden box in his grandmother's house filled with letters in German and Yiddish belonging to relatives who perished in the Holocaust; what started out as a genealogy report turned into his life work.

When he was 10 years old, 2nd Lt. Noam Korev was studying the Holocaust as part of a genealogy report for school and discovered a wooden box that took him on a fascinating investigation that changed his life.

 

 

2nd Lt. Korev, 21, from Jerusalem, who served as an officer in the Etzion Brigade, has already published two books about the Holocaust after extensive research in Israel and abroad.

 

It all began with his genealogy project in fifth grade, when Noam visited his grandparents' home and found a mysterious wooden box filled with letters in Yiddish and German from World War II. His curious nature pushed him to learn German in order to better understand the contents of the documents and letters he had found and to delve deeper into the family history, as many of his family members perished in the Holocaust.

 

2nd Lt. Noam Korev with his grandmother, Hava (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
2nd Lt. Noam Korev with his grandmother, Hava (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

 

At the end of his senior year of high school, he began writing a book about his family's story.

 

"My mother didn't know half of what Noam found out after his research for the book," says his grandmother, Hava Bonfil, a Holocaust survivor. "Unfortunately, she didn't get the chance to read the book and find out more about our family. She didn't know that they had been placed in a concentration camp and where they had been exterminated. All those years she searched and tried to find out," said Hava in pain.

 

According to Hava, her mother had wanted to destroy the box from which Noam gleaned most of the information for his first book, wishing to get rid of the bad memories from the war.

 

For six years, Noam worked on the book together with his archeologist aunt Ruchama.

 

"It's not a common thing," Noam says with a smile. "I don't know many children who study the Holocaust. You could say that I'm quite obsessed with it. The Holocaust takes a big part of my life."

 

2nd Lt. Noam Korev with his grandmother, Hava (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
2nd Lt. Noam Korev with his grandmother, Hava (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

 

Ten months ago, when he was on leave from the military, Noam used his vacation to travel to London to meet with a Holocaust survivor to obtain more information.

 

"I go to places that may be less interesting to other people, but that's me. The Holocaust is the most extreme event in the history of humanity, it's important to tell future generations (about it) so that the memories are not erased," Noam says.

 

"I'm very proud of him," says his grandmother. "All I knew was that they had perished in the Holocaust, and beyond that I knew nothing, and suddenly, the whole puzzle came together and I discovered entire lives that were simply erased from history until Noam came and began to investigate."

 

Noam also lectures students on the subject. Following his lectures, many students choose to start researching the Holocaust and their own family roots. The books he wrote are in the Yad Vashem library in Jerusalem: the first book is titled Because They Were, and They are Gone, and Yet Remain, which tells the amazing story of the Steinhardt family, while the second book, The Bird's Eye, tells the story of the Strauss family from his father's side.

 

(Translated and edited by N. Elias)

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.23.17, 13:11
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