Earlier this week, a diverse 46-person delegation from Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam) traveled to Poland for a week-long visit to participate in today's March of the Living. Two members of the hospital’s delegation share personal stories that highlight their extraordinary connections to the heroes and Righteous Among the Nations of the Holocaust.
Today’s March of the Living commemorates eighty years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. In 2023, Rambam director general Professor Michael Halberthal launched the hospital’s annual participation in the march. Having led the first delegation, he is also taking part in this year’s march. For him, the event is more than a historical tribute—it reflects Rambam’s core values and holds deep personal meaning due to his family’s Holocaust-era experiences and their connection to Oskar Schindler.
Professor Halberthal's Story
“My grandfather, Chaim—a businessman—saw the danger unfolding in Europe. He was somehow able to obtain immigration certificates for his immediate family and brought them to Israel in 1937,” explains Halberthal. A cousin remained behind, and it was Schindler who saved his life.
Liebka and Chaim with their grandsons Rob and Michael Halberthal.
Photography: Courtesy of the Halberthal family.
Schindler, an industrialist and member of the Nazi Party, is now recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations for saving 1,200 Jews through his actions during the Holocaust.
The Halberthal family’s connection to Schindler deepens through Yitzhak Stern, Schindler’s trusted accountant who later became Halberthal’s father’s business partner. “Henk Mandel, my father’s cousin, was saved by Schindler and was Stern’s assistant,” Halberthal adds.
In 1962, Schindler and his wife, Emilie, arrived in Israel. “Few people knew about it, but my grandfather, Chaim, heard through his cousin,” says Halberthal. Then, one day, something extraordinary happened. “Chaim was walking in Tel Aviv when he saw Schindler and Emilie on the street. He brought them to his home on Gordon Street. The Schindlers were struggling financially, and after they returned to Germany, my grandfather continued to support them.”
Sometime later, Halberthal’s father, Menachem, an industrialist “with the soul of a historian,” wrote to a relative in Los Angeles, Berl Adams, who was then vice president at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In his letter, he described the events involving Schindler and suggested that MGM consider making a film about the story,” Halberthal explains. “A few weeks later, MGM responded—the story was compelling, but they felt audiences at the time were tired of hearing about the Holocaust, so they decided to pass.”
In 1993, Schindler’s List, directed by Steven Spielberg, was released. “While the film was in development, my father was in direct contact with the production team and provided every detail he could,” Halberthal adds.
Halberthal recalls a scene at the end of the movie, where survivors are walking by Schindler’s grave [at Mount Zion Christian Cemetery in Jerusalem]. “Even though my father was not one of those saved by Schindler, there is a close-up of him placing a stone on the grave—it was a deeply meaningful moment in our family’s history.”
Professor Rachel Grossman's Story
Professor Rachel Grossman, director of Rambam’s Brain Tumor Center and deputy director of the Department of Neurosurgery, is also a member of the hospital delegation. Her father survived the Holocaust under extraordinary circumstances shaped by coincidence and luck.
Professor Rachel Grossman and her father, Dov Grossman.
Photography: (L) Rambam HCC; (R) courtesy of the Grossman family.
In 1942, the day after the Passover Seder, the Grossman family was sent to the Lodz Ghetto. One day, Chaim Shmuel and Gittel Grossman, Rachel’s grandparents, along with her father, Dov, and his sister, Leah, were slated to be deported to the Chelmno extermination camp. Rachel recounts, “For some reason, Chaim pushed Dov to the ground. When he got up and lifted his head, he saw an SS officer standing over him.”
“The officer asked my father for his name, and he replied, ‘Bayrak (Dov in Yiddish) Grossman.’ The soldier was stunned—his own surname was also Grossman. He couldn’t comprehend how a Jew, deemed inferior, could share the same surname as someone from the so-called ‘superior’ Aryan race. The soldier ordered my father to disappear, but not before striking him with great force,” she recalls.
Professor Grossman continues, “My father caught a glimpse of the family being led to the transport.” That moment marked the beginning of Dov’s escape and survival journey. He fled on foot to a Polish acquaintance who gave him shelter and helped him obtain forged identification under the German name Jan Plušek. But as time went on and the danger intensified, Dov was forced to flee once again.
“He escaped through forests, dodging gunfire, but eventually made it to Germany, where he kept a low profile. After the war, in 1946, my father immigrated to Israel and was reunited with his brother, Raphael (Pollik), who had arrived in 1933. Raphael later married my mother Dvora, a descendant of one of Tel Aviv’s founding families."
As the voices of survivors grow fewer with each passing year, stories like these remind us of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust—and the extraordinary courage and resilience, of those that that endured. Rambam honors those who were lost and those who survived.
Based on a Hebrew article that first appeared on Ynet
