Shmuel Gogol

Shmuel Gogol was born in 1924 in Warsaw

Gogol was born in Warsaw in 1924. His mother died and his father was expelled from Poland, so his grandmother raised him. In 1930 she brought him to Janusz Korczak's orphanage, where he received a harmonica as a gift.

In 1940 he moved with the orphanage to the Warsaw Ghetto, and later hid in Maków Mazowiecki and in a forest. He was deported to Auschwitz, where he traded food for a harmonica. An SS officer heard him play and made him join the camp orchestra, and he vowed to teach Jewish children the harmonica if he survived.

After the war he met Ruth Berman in Toulouse, and they married and settled in Tel Aviv. From 1948 to 1950 he was in the military band Ayalon. In 1955 he formed a harmonica trio, and in 1963 he founded the Ramat Gan Harmonica Orchestra, later named after him.

In 1990 he returned to Poland with the orchestra and played at Auschwitz, and a German Korczak association gave him a prize. In 1993 he joined Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on a state trip to Auschwitz. He died on 13 May 1993 and was buried in Yarkon Cemetery.