JEWISH GALICIA & BUKOVINA

Promoting the study and commemoration of the cultural heritage

In cooperation with:

Shlomo (Berghoffer) Beker was born in 1915 in Vienna to a family of First World War refugees from Buchach. He had 2 brothers and 3 sisters. His father worked as a mechanic. In 1921 the family moved back to Buchach: where he studied, became a barber and married at a young age. In 1938 Shlomo enlisted in the Polish army and served near Stanislawow.
With the outbreak of the Second World War his squad was captured by the Germans and taken to prisoner of war camp in Breslau district.  Shlomo was sent from the camp with other Jewish soldiers to a labor camp in Lublin then to Maidanek from where he managed to escape to the Soviet Union so he could reunite with his family. But when he crossed the border he was caught by the NKVD and sent to a concentration camp in Siberia. As a former Polish soldier he was released and recruited to Anders’ Army, he was relocated with other Polish soldiers to Iran and then to the British army base in Egypt. There he deserted the army to join Kibbutz Mitzpe Yam and later moved to Yad Mordechai. All of Shlomo Beker’s family members who remained in Buchach were murdered in the Holocaust.
In an interview which was recorded in 1975 and has now been uploaded to the organizations site Shlomo tells the story of his childhood in Buchach, his adversities in Poland, in the Soviet Union, Iran, Egypt and the land of Israel until the Establishment of the Jewish state and The War of Independence.

The interview  with it's full transcription was generously submitted to our site by the interviewee's grandson Ziv Beker