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Beni Virtzberg ((ヘブライ語:בני וירצברג); August 12, 1928 – August 4, 1968) was an Israeli forester, Holocaust survivor and writer who was among the first in Israel to write an autobiographical account of his experiences during and after the Holocaust. He began writing his book “Migei Haharega Lesha'ar Hagai" (“From the Valley of Slaughter to the Gate of the Valley") in the wake of the Adolf Eichmann trial, when court testimony by survivors prompted Israelis to openly and publicly discuss what the survivors had lived through. ==His Life== Virtzberg was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany, to Gabriel Gustav, a merchant, and Rachel, a university graduate and homemaker. Alarmed by the events of Kristallnacht in 1938, the family relocated to Poland and moved into the Jewish quarter in Sosnowiec. They were subsequently transferred to the Środula ghetto during the war, and on August 1, 1943 the ghetto was liquidated, and they were sent to Auschwitz. Virtzberg’s mother was killed upon their arrival at the camp. Virtzberg and his father were separated from one another, prompting Virtzberg to turn to one of the Nazi officers nearby and ask him to let the two of them stay together. By fate, the officer he approached was Josef Mengele, who supervised the selection of prisoners in the camp. Mengele opted to spare the father’s life, and young Beni was assigned to work in the camp hospital where Mengele conducted his notorious experiments. For several weeks he served as Mengele’s personal servant and errand boy. Mengele spared Virtzberg’s father from subsequent selections, and assigned the father to a block where Virtzberg was able to smuggle him food. In January 1945, with Allied troops approaching, Auschwitz was vacated and its remaining prisoners were forced into a death march in an attempt to conceal evidence of the atrocities that took place there. Virtzberg’s father was too ill to walk, and when he finally collapsed an S.S. soldier shot and killed him as Virtzberg watched in horror. After he was liberated, Virtzberg spent a few months in the town of Santa Maria in Italy before immigrating to Israel as part of the Youth Aliyah in November 1945. There he was taken in by members of Kibbutz Givat HaShlosha, where he trained for service in the Palmach, the military force organized by Jews in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. He joined the Palmach in February 1948 and fought in Israel’s War of Independence. During the war he participated in efforts to break the blockade of Jerusalem’s Jewish residents, and later he joined in the battles down in Negev Desert, during which four of his brothers in arms were killed. After his release from the army, Virtzberg married Rachel Issachar (Bashari), a native of Rehovot of Yemenite ancestry who like Vitzberg fought in the Palmach. Virtzberg worked for the Jewish National Fund as a forester, and later directed the research department for the Southern region forestry operation. During his tenure there, he developed the Liman irrigation system, a technique inspired by Nabataean irrigation methods.〔()〕 His book, which was published in 1967, did not meet with commercial success and was eclipsed by the flood of books published following Israel’s victory in the Six Day War. The book chronicled his experiences and those of nine friends who like him survived the Holocaust, immigrated to Israel, and participated in the War of Independence. He wrote: “Ten children together left the gates of death, six of us were left, not six orphaned children but six fighters. We fought and will fight when necessary, so that Jewish children, wherever they are, shall never become orphaned as we were.” The Israeli historian Avihu Ronen described Virtzberg’s book as follows: “This is a unique book that was ahead of its time, and includes extremely important and authentic personal testimony. Virtzberg’s story is importantly unique and has no parallel among the various testimonials and stories from the Holocaust.”〔()〕 On August 4, 1968, a little over a week before turning 40 and plagued with depression, Virtzberg took his own life and shot himself in his family home, leaving behind his wife Rachel, a son, Ilan Virtzberg, who went on to become an acclaimed songwriter and performer,〔()〕 and a daughter, Dahlia. At his funeral, the chief rabbi of Beer-Sheba, Rabbi Eliyahu Kushelevsky, eulogized him by noting: “Eichmann killed him twenty-five years ago. But we only received the body today.” 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beni Virtzberg」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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