“He would be killed just for having it in his possession. But a Torah is a Torah and my father was determined to save it”
As told to Sandy Eller by Rabbi Benzion Katz
IT measures just 15 by 10 inches, is over a century old, and has been part of the fabric of my life since before I was born.
It is the sefer Torah that my father rescued from the depths of a World War II work camp during one of the darkest times known to humanity. Whose it was and where it came from is a mystery. But what happened to this priceless treasure since then is a story that bridges the gaps between the past, present, and future, links in a chain that can never be broken.
My father, Reb Yehoshua Alter Katz, grew up in Apsha, Czechoslovakia, a small town near the Romanian border. He would tell me how his father, whose name I bear, was so wealthy that they once took a 15-minute train ride through the Czechoslovakian forest so that my zeidy could show my father how he earned his parnassah.
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