THE HERSH SEGAL COLLECTION

All materials have been scanned and are accessible through the internet at our website: https://infocenters.co.il/gfh/search.asp?lang=ENG Very few Jewish children survived the holocaust (approx. 11%). During the formative years of their lives these children witnessed and experienced the horrors of the war and these decisive experiences followed them like shadow in the years that followed. While they went through rehabilitation in children's homes and educational facilities, some of those rehabilitating them (Teachers, instructors, most of them survivors themselves) encouraged the children to share their story. Hence throughout 1945 - 1949 a large body of child holocaust survivor's testimonies was recorded. Hersh segal was one such teacher at the orphanages in Bacau and Gura Humorului, Romania, who encouraged his pupils to write about their experiences during the war. The students were all survivors of the deportation to Transnistria, a region in Ukraine, where due to the harsh conditions of cold, hunger and disease only few survived and many had been orphaned. Hersh Segal was born on 8 December 1905 in Novi Strilyshcha (Austro - Hungarian empire at the time, now Ukraine). At the Outset of WWI his family fled to Praha (Prague), where they lived as refugees until 1917. They then travelled to Chernivtsi, Ukraine. In 1925 Segal completed his mathematics and physics studies. After his military service, he returned to Chernivtsi, where he worked as a school teacher until 1941. In 1946 he moved to Bacau, Romania, where he worked as a mathematics professor until his immigration to Israel in 1962 where he continued to teach until 1973. He died in 1982. The collection contains the following materials: 1. 85 questioners with testimonies of children. In each questionnaire the children were required to write down their names, place and year of birth and also share their experiences during the war. Because the children were deported to different places in Transnistria it is possible to form a comprehensive picture of the camps and ghettos in Transnistria. (85 testimonies, handwritten original in Yiddish [with Hebrew translation]). 2. Two Booklets with a selection of 25 testimonies in Yiddish [Written in Hebrew letters]. (120 pages, Handwritten and typewritten copy in Yiddish [Hebrew letters]) 3. A letter in Yiddish (with Hebrew translation) written by the children's teacher, Rachel Hezenpratz Those archival materials which have been digitized and made available for viewing -- accessed on this site or through the GFH website’s Online Archive -- may be downloaded for personal use and classroom presentation, but not for distribution in any media. High-resolution images of archival materials are available by order; there is a fee for this service. Researchers wishing to gain further information are invited to contact the archive.