Joseph Serchuk
Joseph Serchuk (1919 - 6 November 1993) was the commander of the Jewish partisan unit in the Lublin area in Poland During World War II. After the war, he testified at trials of Nazi and he received special recognition from the State of Israel.
Biography
After his parents and other family members were killed in ghetto on 1941, Joseph and his brothers David were taken to Sobibor extermination camp. after one day in the camp he fled with his brother to the nearest forest and together with other fleeing he founded the core of the partisan group. During the war, the group led by Jews who had escaped from the ghettos caught nearby and from Sobibor. The group was also the writer Dov Freiberg.
After the war Joseph took part in locating fleeing Nazi war criminals in Europe, and served as a witness in the Nuremberg Trials. Then returned to Poland and applied to emigrate to Israel, but was declined.
On 1950 obtain a passport and went to Israel. Immediately on arrival in Israel was drafted as a soldier in army. After the service he married, settled in Yad Eliyahu in Tel Aviv and business industry and entrepreneurship.
Over the years went Serchuk to Europe several times to testify in the trials of Nazi war criminals. In one, the trial of Oberscharführer Hugo Raschendorfer, he was the only prosecution witness. After Raschendorfer was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, Serchuk was awarded special award from Nazi Crimes Investigation Department of the Israel Police.
In 1967 Levi Eshkol, the Israeli Prime Minister, gave him the Fighters against Nazis Medal, and in 1968 he received in addition the State Fighters Medal.
He saw the establishment and strengthening of the IDF and the State of Israel and the Jewish birthrate - his revenge against the Nazis slaughtered all his extended family.
Serchuk died in 1993 in Tel Aviv at age 74. Was married, and left behind nine children and more than a hundred grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
See also
- Dov Freiberg, To Survive Sobibor, New York, 2007.
- Dov Freiberg, A Journey To The Past With Dekel Shibolim, Ramla, 1993.
- Dov Freiberg, A Man as Any Other, Ramla, 1996.
- Mark Paul: Polish-Jewish Relations in Wartime Northeastern Poland and the Aftermath PEFINA Press, Toronto 2008
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