The last Jew of Auschwitz.
- Apr 6
- 2 min read
Shimshon Kruger was a little boy, 10 or 11, when the Nazis invaded Poland. He and his family lived in the small town of Oswiecim, home to a majority Jewish population and ten synagogues. The Krugers lived in a small house next to the Chevra Lomedi Mishnayot Synagogue where Shimshon’s grandfather was rabbi.
Oswiecim is a Polish name, but the German version is much more familiar to us – Auschwitz. Yes, the infamous concentration camp was built right on the outskirts of town and not surprisingly, Oswiecim was quickly “Judenfrei” – free of Jews. What Shimshon experienced as a prisoner prior to liberation on January 27, 1945 is unclear, but what we do know is that liberation never arrived for his young mind.
You see he lived the rest of his life in a basement hovel, entirely certain that Hitler and the Nazis remained in power. His older brother and sister, having survived and moved to America, were his only visitors. They tried for years to convince him that it was safe to come out, but time had simply stopped for Shimshon. His tortured mind lived somewhere else, forever in the midst of fear and the horror. His siblings made certain he had water and electricity, and they paid townspeople to leave food outside his door. He remained the only Jew in Oswiecim, this crazy old recluse, until the year 2000.
Shimshon died on May 26, 2000 and although a Jewish cemetery survived in Oswiecim, there was no one left to prepare his body or to give him a proper burial. Through an incredible twist of fate, a group of Jewish students, seniors from Ramaz Upper School in Manhattan, were touring Poland when their leader was contacted by the Rabbi of Krakow. Would they be willing to make the four-hour detour to Oswiecim to bury Shimshon Kruger? There was simply no one else, he explained. Every single student agreed, and in the end, they described how their young hands shook as they lifted the coffin and covered it with dirt; how their voices quavered as they sang.
It is an irony, is it not? Thirty-four Jewish kids standing in the epicenter of Nazi hatred, proudly singing the Tehillim, the Psalms, to the very last Jew of Auschwitz.
