Holocaust survivor Yeshayahu Drucker talks about restoring children to the Jewish fold

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Published 2021-04-13

Yeshayahu Drucker was born in 1914 in Jordanow, Poland, but soon moved with his family to Krakow. He later moved to Warsaw, where he studied at the State Seminary for Teachers of the Mosaic Religion, and in the History Department of the Institute of Judaic Studies, a branch of the University of Warsaw. When the war broke out he fled eastward, but was caught and imprisoned by the Soviets, who sent him to a Soviet forced labor camp in Komi. In 1943 he enlisted to the Polish Kosciusko Division, which fought alongside the Red Army and participated in the battle for Berlin.
After the war, he returned to Poland and met Rabbi David Kahane, Chief Chaplain in the Polish Army, who recommended that Drucker be appointed Polish Army Chaplain with the rank of captain. In the course of his service, Drucker traveled throughout Poland, located Jewish children and extracted them from Polish families and convents, bringing them to the children's home in Zabrze. The children knew him as "Pan [Sir] Kapitan". Yeshayahu Drucker immigrated to Israel in 1950. His father Yisrael and his younger brother Yosef were murdered in Vilna. His mother Rachel and his sister Devorah were murdered in Belzec. His brother Aharon survived.

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