Wolf Galperin — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

After joining the children who had been separated from their parents in order to be sent to be exterminated, Wolf Galperin ensembled the children into a group and taught them how to take care of themselves by being tidy and orderly in order to survive. Upon getting off the train at Auschwitz, the children marched in threes led by Wolf in front of the Nazis, thereby preventing their being sent to the gas chambers. This is the story of a 17-year-old youth who helped children survive, saving some of them, and of a group of ‘131 children from the Kovno Ghetto’

“After being in the Landsberg camp for a few days, everyone was rounded up, stood in line, with a group of 130 young children of 8 – 14 being set apart, amongst whom was Shlomo, while the older brothers were in a different group. I found it very difficult to part from him and thought to myself: ‘Such a small child, how is he going to manage?’ That night, I came to a decision that I shared with my father and my brother Feivke: ‘I want to join the group that has been separated from the rest of us so that I can protect Shlominke and help him’”. That is the beginning of the story of Wolf Galperin, a 17-year-old youth who decided to infiltrate the group of 130 and help the children, including his brother, to get through the hell that was in store for them.

Wolf Galperin was born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1927, to Luba and Yehezkel Galperin. He had two older siblings, Frida and Pola, and two younger ones, Feive and Shlomo. In August 1941, the Galperin family were placed in the Kovno Ghetto with all the town’s Jews. They managed to survive a number of Aktions, but the ghetto was liquidated in July 1944, and they were sent to the camps together with thousands of other Jews from the ghetto.

When their train reached the Stutthof concentration camp all the women and little children were taken off and placed in the camp. This was a short and cruel parting from their mothers, young brothers and sisters. Some of them were immediately sent to the gas chambers, some were put to work until they were murdered, and some were sent to Birkenau a few days later for extermination. Very few survived that terrible camp.

A small number of children decided not to get off the train and, enduring pain and terror, they continued the journey with their fathers to the Landsberg camp near Dachau in Germany. Two of these children were the brothers Feive and Shlomo who were both under 13. After a week in the camp, the Nazis realized that there were 130 children mingled amongst the adults who were destined to make up the camp work force. The children were separated from the adults and placed in a compound which had been prepared for them and from where they were to be sent for extermination.

When Shlomo, the youngest of the family, was separated from his father and two brothers, Wolf who was 17 at the time, decided to crawl between the barbed wire, at great risk to himself, in order to join his younger brother so that he wouldn’t go to the slaughter on his own. Wolf snuck into the tent of the 130 children. “Father was surprised”, said Wolf in his testimony. ‘How will you get inside the camp? How will you hide the fact that you are bigger than they are? After all, you are 17!’. But he didn’t oppose the idea, possibly because he had taken many risks while living in the ghetto and knew that taking risks sometimes pays off. I parted from them with kisses and hugs and crawled under the wire. I didn’t feel at all afraid, perhaps because I felt this great need to help my brother. I reached the group and found my brother. When he saw me, he understood why I was there and burst into tears, protesting: ’Isn’t it enough that I have to die, why should you condemn yourself to such a fate? Go back to father’. I made it quite clear that there was nothing to discuss, I was not going to leave him on his own – and that is how I joined the group, the 131^st member”.

Some days later, the group was sent to the Dachau concentration camp. The children arrived at the camp in a state of confusion and devastation after their forced separation, where they stayed for about a week. During their stay at the camp, Wolf started to form the children into a group. Young Wolf understood the great importance the Nazis attached to tidiness and orders, and chose to do this through neatness and disciplinary drills which were essential for their survival in the camp. Thanks to his maturity, leadership and mostly by setting a personal example, the children accepted Wolf’s authority and so, this group of children who had all been strangers to each other, became a close-knit group. Wolf’s devotion to his younger brother quickly turned into devotion to all the other children, resulting in the formation of the group of ‘131 Children of Kovno Ghetto’.

The members of the group were transferred from Dachau to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. This was the end of the road for the Jews, and certainly for the children, arriving at Birkenau. Hundreds of thousands of children arriving at the camp were quickly sent to their deaths in the gas chambers following the Selektion. Upon the  group's arrival at the camp on the night of 31^st August, 1944, the children were taken off the train and stood on the ramp of the camp’s train platform prior to the Selektion, The children from the group of 131, started to organize themselves as directed by Wolf.

“We arrived at Birkenau at night. The searchlights were shrouded in fog, hardly any light could be seen in the camp, hardly any voices could be heard, it was deathly quiet, the crematoria were working at full steam. We didn’t know what that actually meant, and when we asked, we were told that they were baking bread and rolls for those going off to work. We got out of the carriages. Wolfke immediately arranged us into threes and marched us ‘links-recht, links-recht’, ‘left-right, left-right’. When we marched passed the SS officers, Wolf ordered us to ‘look right’, and we turned our heads and eyes to the right. This appealed to the officers who stopped us, and then a junior officer asked a more senior one, ‘What should we do with them?’ He was told to let us pass. (Taken from the testimony of Daniel Chanoch from the group of 131).

It appeared that our organized and orderly show appealed to the SS officers who were standing on the platform, and subsequently influenced the decision of the Germans to accept the group into the camp and not send them straight to the gas chambers, as was the fate of children arriving at the camp. Instead of being exterminated, the children were tattooed with a number and sent to Låger A, a temporary camp in Birkenau. In the camp, where there were very few children, the children of the group were put to work hauling carts holding the dead.

“Whilst we were living in Birkenau we kept together as a group, all the while being mindful of each other. We received the communal portion of bread each morning which was then divided up between everyone. There were scales at our disposal so that the bread could be divided equally. According to one method, we used to cut the portions of bread equally, and the one distributing the bread, held two pieces behind his back. The children’s names were called out one after the other, and each child was asked to choose which hand he wanted. This prevented favoritism. We were a close-knit group and no one tried to cheat in this respect”.

As time passed, the Germans noticed that Wolf was older than the others in the group.  He was separated from them and sent to Sachsenhausen for forced labor. Although Wolf was not physically with the children of the group from that day and until the end of the war, the leadership and group solidarity that he had instilled in them, continued to have an impact on them.

The children of the group suffered harsh conditions and continual hunger for six months at Birkenau. There were two Aktions during which 90 children were sent for extermination in the gas chambers. Living conditions were inhumane. The children suffered from chronic hunger, disease and overcrowding. Somehow, 39 of the children of the group managed to survive until the Russian front approached. On 5^th May, 1945, the children were liberated from the Gunskirchen camp by the allied forces.

Wolf, who had been separated from the group, was sent for forced labor at a mine production plant in Sachsenhausen from where he was sent on a 300 km death march to Schwerin in Germany. It was the US army that liberated the prisoners on the spot.

After his release, Wolf began his journey home, starting off eastwards by bike until it was confiscated by Soviet soldiers. Wolf was arrested at the Lithuanian border but, thanks to the number tattooed on his arm (B-2816), he was allowed to enter the country and join his family in Vilna which had miraculously survived the Holocaust – his parents, sisters Frida and Peka, and his brother Feive. His brother Shlomo had survived with the children and, immigrated to Eretz Israel via Italy immediately after the war. Wolf immigrated to Israel in 1990, lived in Sderoth and worked at his profession – construction engineering.

Every year, since their immigration to Israel and till today, the remaining members of the group of 131, hold a sort of ‘class reunion’ and celebrate a joint birthday on the anniversary of their liberation, when they bring up old memories. Wolf also participates in these annual reunions. The survivors and their families hold Wolf Galperin dear for their survival, thanks to his heroism, his resourcefulness and leadership in times of need, and still look upon him as the leader to whom they owe their lives.

https://greenwin.kkl.org.il/features/holidays/holocaust_day/galperin/

An interview with Wolf Galperin - https://www.mako.co.il/news-israel/local-q2_2018/Article-f2d09dcc51ab261004.htm

Further reading: From: B'nai B'rith World Center