New York City – VIN News was the first to report Of A miracles story about a Holocaust survivor Mr. Hillel Himmel discovery a few weeks ago that one of his concentration camp fellow prisoners Mr Hersh Hanfling was still alive. the two have since only spoken by Telephone, but our story got the attention of NY Post reporter Mr. Reuven Blau who arranged last week for a tearful reunion for the first time after 50 years where Mr Himmel And Mr. Hanflig have not seen each other.
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Below is the story from the NY Post.
In the waning days of World War II, 15-year-old concentration-camp prisoner Hillel Himmel and hundreds of other terrified Jews lay at the bottom of a muddy makeshift grave, staring down the barrel of a Nazi machine gun.
Himmel shielded his head with a rock and waited for the rat-a-tat-tat sound he had heard so often echo in the Vaihingen death camp in Germany.
“I figured that the rest of my body could take a hit, but that I could still survive,” Himmel, 81, recalled recently at his Washington Heights apartment.
Fate intervened. A female SS officer began arguing with his would-be executioner.
“I’ll never know who she was or what she told him,” Himmel said, but he and others were spared. “She was like an angel from heaven.”
Surrounded by Nazi guards, the general ordered the Jews to stay in the dirt pit. Many froze to death that night, but Himmel and a buddy huddled for warmth. In the morning, they discovered that the guards had fled the onrushing Allies who were dropping bombs nearby.
After more than 60 years, and a good life in America as a watchmaker, Himmel decided to put that vivid, haunting memory and others to paper.
He turned to books by Holocaust survivors at the Yeshiva University Library, where experts recommended he read “Plucked from the Fire of the Holocaust,” by Hersh Hanfling.
Right away, he knew he had found a long-lost friend, a fellow prisoner he had met behind the walls of Budzin death camp in Poland shortly in 1942.
Himmel recalled how each day, he, Hanfling and 3,000 other prisoners were marched several miles to fix airplanes for the Third Reich. Those who couldn’t keep up were shot.
“You wake up and the person next to you was dead. The worst was going back in wintertime at night in our pajamas,” Himmel said.
After the war, at a displaced-persons camp near Landsberg, Germany, the pair met up once more. Each had learned that the Nazis had slaughtered their parents and siblings.
Both immigrated to Brooklyn, but shortly thereafter they lost touch.
On Sept. 2, fate stepped in again. A Yeshiva University librarian told Himmel that he knew the author’s son and that his old pal was living in Highland Park, NJ. After a phone conversation, they agreed to meet three days later.
“I don’t know if I’d recognize him on the street if I saw him today,” Himmel said during the car ride to meet his friend. “But I remember exactly how he looked when we were in the camp together.”
As the car pulled up into the driveway a voice cried out, “Oy Himmel!”
Tears of 50 years streamed down their faces.
Oy, what a Gevaldigeh Nekumeah in the Nazis! Am Yisroel Chai.
א כתיבה וחתימה טובה פאר אלע אידישע קינדער
Thanks VIN for bringing this story to the world, what a kiddush hashem.
Thank you for this story. It made me cry. I just ordered his story.
http://astore.amazon.com/smallmiracles-20/detail/1599214075/105-6966962-7616402.
A Git G’benched Yur
If its Bashert, anything can Happen….
BH!
Mi keamcha yisroel!
ONLY AT YU!!!!!
so few of us are still alive that this story gives you koach
may the be able to enjoy many more years in good health together
כתיבה וחתימה טובה
What an amazing story. It made me cry when it was first reported here and again now. Thanks, VIN, for reporting this.
A c’siva v’chasima tovah to all.
Talmid 11:57,
“ONLY AT YU!!!!!”
——-
Actually they happen at other places too, and to people who wouldn’t set foot in YU. My friend related that a stranger came over to his father at a simchah and they embraced warmly and spoke for several minutes. My friend knew it wasn’t a relative and he had never seen the man before. So he asked his father: “Who was that?” His father replied: “When went to camp together… Dachau.”
A k’siva v’chasima tova to all