Public lifeשמחה הולצברג

Simcha Holtzberg

Simcha Holtzberg was an Israeli activist and Holocaust survivor known as the "Father of the Wounded Soldiers."

1924 to 1994Support for wounded IDF soldiersProtests against Israel-Germany tiesThe Warsaw Ghetto UprisingThe 1976 Israel Prize

Born: 18 April 1924, Warsaw
Died: 13 February 1994, Glilot Interchange
Occupation: activist

Simcha Holtzberg was born in 1924 in Warsaw

Holtzberg was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1924 to Shmuel and Tziporah Holtzberg. His family was Haredi and poor. In 1942 his family was sent to be killed at Treblinka.

He took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was then held in camps. British forces freed him from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. In 1946 he married Mela, also a Holocaust survivor.

He came to Israel in 1949 and settled in Bnei Brak, where he traded in Judaica and art. For years he protested against closer ties between Israel and Germany and was arrested several times. He also set up Holocaust libraries and published the poems of Yitzhak Katzenelson.

Influenced by Rabbi Aryeh Levin, after the Six-Day War he gave his time to wounded IDF soldiers, disabled veterans, widows and orphans. He received the Israel Prize in 1976. He died in 1994 during a memorial ceremony and was buried in Sanhedria Cemetery in Jerusalem.