Is missing Jeno in Australia?

A DESPERATE global search is underway to locate the twin brother of Holocaust child survivor Menachem Bodner, who is appealing to Australia’s Jewish community to join the hunt.

Now living in Israel, Bodner, 73, was four-and-a-half when he was left for dead at Auschwitz in the final days of World War II. At the time, his name was Elias Gottesman. His tattoo number was A-7733. He and his twin brother, Jeno Gottesman – affectionately known as Jolli – had been the subjects of experiments by the camp’s Angel of Death, Josef Mengele, before they became separated.

Just days before the liberation of Auschwitz, Bodner came across a man who was looking for his family and asked him if he would be his father. After getting Bodner to safety outside the camp, the man adopted him and later took him to live in Israel.

But what happened to Jeno, whose tattoo number was A-7734, remains a mystery to this day.

Bodner’s adoptive father searched tirelessly for Jeno until his death around 40 years ago. His adoptive mother took the mantle briefly, but with no real evidence Jeno had survived Auschwitz, the search stalled.

According to Israeli genealogist Ayana KimRon, Bodner, who enlisted her to help him revitalise the search, struggled with the trauma associated with the memory of his brother and had given up hope of seeing him alive. He didn’t even know his own real name, let alone that of his brother’s.

“He was at the point where he didn’t believe anymore that anyone from his family had survived,” KimRon told The AJN.

“He felt it was just him, the last survivor of his own family. He doesn’t remember his brother, he doesn’t remember anything really, just a few snapshots he’s carried with him his whole life.”

But then came a breakthrough that would change everything. KimRon uncovered evidence Jeno had survived Auschwitz.

After tracking down Bodner’s biological family, KimRon discovered that the twins’ mother had returned to her home town of Stroino, a Ukrainian village – then in Hungary – where she was murdered in 1946. Prior to this, however, she had received information that one of her sons had survived.

But the information couldn’t have been referring to Bodner. In 1945, the Nazis began marching prisoners from camps in Poland to camps inside Germany. The sick, incapacitated and children – Bodner among them – were left to die in the camps. During this brief period, Bodner’s adoptive father had helped him escape. It was just days before the liberation of Auschwitz, meaning there would have been no official record of his survival. Therefore, the surviving twin the mother learnt of had to be Jeno.

According to records, Jeno was last seen by Allied doctors and passed as healthy after liberation, but there the trail ends.

Now Bodner and KimRon are using the information they have gathered – the name Jeno “Jolli” Gottesman and the tattoo number

A-7734 – to track him down via a Facebook page, which has garnered more than 37,000 “likes” and has been viewed around a million times.

“We launched the Facebook site because if Jolli is alive, he must have family, or neighbours, or friends, and so the Facebook page was established to look for them. Check your neighbour, check homes for the elderly, whatever. Just look around and don’t be afraid to look at the [tattooed] numbers on the arm. This is the problem we have, not wanting to look at the tattoos. Do it, it’s important,” said KimRon.

For more information, visit the Facebook page: A 7734

ADAM KAMIEN

Menachem Bodner today.

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