Reclaiming a connection with the past
SYDNEY siblings Alex Gottshall and Eva Wittenberg have experienced an emotional reconnection with their family’s past after receiving a parcel of family treasures their grandfather hid in his attic more than 70 years ago.
Cantor Samuel Gottschall hid the items – including photographs, documents and a music book – in the attic of his Presov (then Czechoslovakia) home in 1942, before he was deported to Auschwitz, where he and most of his family perished.
Gottshall and Wittenberg’s father, Rabbi Benjamin Gottshall (he dropped the “c” from the surname) – a stalwart of the Sydney Jewish community before his death in 1978 – was the only survivor.
Then in October last year, Slovakian handyman Imrich Girasek was fixing a leaking roof in the Presov house when he discovered the items and contacted a local reporter. The reporter then tracked down Gottshall and Wittenberg in Sydney.
“Imagine, 72 years these items were languishing in the dirt,” Wittenberg told The AJN.
“All these people were wiped off the face of the Earth.
“But thanks to this man, Mr Girasek, we’ve found these things. He contacted the reporter and thanks to him, we have a connection. It’s amazing and our dad would be so pleased.”
The AJN was present last Friday to watch Gottshall and Wittenberg open the parcel containing the treasures and see their reactions as they laid their eyes on the items for the first time.
“It’s just such an emotional experience,” Gottshall said.
“It gives us a warm joy but also we are sad to see the painful experience that they went through.
“It represents pain and suffering but it also represents happiness and joy, and the spirit of the family is contained in this. And their legacy continues through the photos that are in there.”
He said that growing up, he and his sister didn’t have much knowledge about their family.
“Eva and I never had any family. We never had any uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents,” he said.
“We knew about the family tree in one sense, but we didn’t know the details of the family. And this visibly, vividly and emotionally shows us who were our family.”
Wittenberg added: “We think about how much fear, how much terror our grandfather and grandmother and uncle – who was living at home with them – what they must have felt when they hid this stuff, knowing they probably had to turn up to the station to be taken away.”
An email from Girasek to Gottshall sent last week also conveyed the handyman’s regret and sorrow at the events of the Holocaust.
“We must not forget our Jewish brothers and sisters massacred by the Nazis and their minions,” he wrote.
“For me it has great emotional significance because I could finally do something for the victims of [the] Holocaust.
“Believe me, there are people in Slovakia that did not forget. You are welcome in our home, because even here in Slovakia are your roots and there are people who bear with you your pain and also joy.”
Gottshall and Wittenberg plan to share the items with their family and the Sydney Jewish Museum.
The music book will be sent to Wittenberg’s son David, who is chazan and honorary president of the Brighton Synagogue in Melbourne, so he can adapt and use his great-grandfather’s compositions.
The Bratislava Jewish community has also expressed interest in the music, as has University of Sydney ethnomusicologist Joseph Toltz.
GARETH NARUNSKY
Eva Wittenberg and Alex Gottshall with a photo of their grandfather Samuel Gottschall and his shul choir. Photo: Gareth Narunsky
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