Holocaust survivor rescued by Chief Rabbi Herzog reunites with his grandson, President Herzog

Almost exactly 80 years ago, in August, 1946, David Danielski made his way to the Katowice railway station in Poland.

There, he joined over 500 other Jewish children who had been orphaned by the Holocaust. The young passengers came from orphanages, monasteries, convents, and private Christian homes from all over Europe. They had been found and rescued by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog and members of the Va’ad Hatzala (Rescue Committee), which Herzog had established.

Danielski, now known as Danieli, became one of Herzog’s many “children.”

On Tuesday, Danieli met with the rabbi’s grandson, President Isaac Halevi Herzog, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

The president’s relatives refer to him as the family historian. Many of his kinfolk had distinguished careers, and the president knows all their stories.

He also knows about the train and the rescue committee founded by his grandfather. During his conversation with Danieli, the president rose several times to go to his study to bring out books about the rescue operation.

Herzog recalled that his grandfather often identified Jewish children by reciting the beginning of the Shema prayer when arriving at places that cared for displaced children. Those who completed the first verse of the prayer were obviously Jewish.

The train is only part of Danieli’s fascinating story.

Danieli’s survival story

When the Germans entered the Rybnik region where he lived, Danieli’s parents sent him away to a farm. There, he helped with the chores, but after a while, the farmer realized that the boy’s presence posed a danger and sent him back to his home. The house was shrouded in darkness. A Gestapo banner on the door bore a notice forbidding entry. The boy did not know what to do. He crossed the road to the home of a non-Jewish neighbor who had been friendly with his mother. The neighbor told him that all the Jews had been taken away, but she did not know what happened to them.

He later learned that his parents were deported to Auschwitz. He never saw them again. The non-Jewish neighbor had promised his mother to protect him, and she kept her word. Her name was Martha Kapitza.

She, her husband Anton, and their children welcomed Danieli into their home.

They lived as normally as possible under the circumstances, and Martha even managed to get the boy baptized.

Danieli even went to school, and like all Christian children who attended German-run schools, he became a member of the Hitler Youth.

Kapitza, who was of German background, had never been searched or questioned. But suddenly, the Gestapo were all over the village.  Kapitza suspected that someone had reported her. She packed a few items of clothing, gave the boy some money, and sent him away. The Gestapo found no evidence of a hidden Jew in her home.

After a few months, Danieli returned to the Kapitza household. He remained there till the end of the war. Life had been hard under the Germans, but according to Danieli, it was even more difficult under the Russians, who ransacked everything.

Danieli told the president that although he knew he was Jewish, at the time, he didn’t know anything about Judaism.

While in the market in Rybnik, Danieli met a man who asked if he was Jewish. Danieli replied that he was but said no more than that. The man told him that he should learn about ‘Yiddishkeit’, and sent him to a Jewish orphanage where he imbibed a little Jewish history and some elementary Hebrew.

On August 22, 1946, Danieli, together with a group of other children from the orphanage, set out for nearby Katowice where there was a train packed with orphaned Jewish children and their supervisors.

Rabbi Herzog and his younger son, Yaakov, were in Warsaw making final arrangements for the train to leave Poland. The Herzogs arrived in Katowice when it was already night, and the train set out on its slow journey to Prague, arriving just before Shabbat. The children remained in Prague until after the High Holy Days.

Some of them were taken to Strasbourg in France, where members of Hapoel Hamizrahi, who were part of Rabbi Herzog’s rescue team, cared for them. Danieli was among them, and in July 1947, he boarded the SS Exodus, which set sail from Marseille with a total of 4,515 Holocaust survivors onboard.

Danieli's arrival to Israel

The ship was intercepted by British Mandate authorities, who towed it to Haifa and then sent its passengers back to Europe. Danieli returned to Strasbourg and, from there, continued on to Hamburg in Germany, where he lived in a camp for displaced persons. In 1948, Danieli traveled to Emden, from where he again sailed to Israel, this time successfully.

He went through the transit camp and kibbutz immigrant absorption process, became an engineer, married, and eventually settled in Beersheba, where he lived for 42 years, raising a family and contributing to the development of the Negev. Two generations of his family accompanied him to his meeting with the president.

This month, Danieli celebrated his 94th birthday. He is a tall, slim man with a head of white hair, a hearty laugh, and a deep voice. He leans on a cane but walks at a fast pace.

He doesn’t remember much about his parents but was able to recount his wartime and immediate post-war experiences in detail.

At the conclusion of the meeting, President Herzog said that he felt privileged and honored to meet one of the hundreds of children rescued by his grandfather and brought back to the Jewish people.  

Listening to Danieli had been “a very moving experience,” Herzog said.