Kestenberg Archive

DM was born in 1929, in a small village named Kobilceka Polyana (?), Czechoslovakia in the Carpathian Mountains to an ultra-orthodox, affluent family of businessmen. Both his parents died from illnesses before the war. In 1940 the Ukrainians shot the majority of Jews from his town in a mass grave. DM and his siblings were spared. In 1942, DM moved to Budapest to join his older brother, became a carpenter and stopped observing religious laws. In 1944 they were transferred to the ghetto. In April of 1944 his two youngest sisters were deported to Auschwitz where they perished. In the summer of 1944, DM's brother was taken to a labor camp and on October 15, 1944 DM was taken as well, there he met his brother. He and his brother escaped back to Budapest. He changed his name to BS and became recognized as a Volksdeutsche. On January 6, 1945 the Russians liberated the city. ; After the war, DM returned to his hometown to discover only 3 other Jews there. He went back to Budapest and then from May-October 1945 participated in the Hagana's “Hachshara” training near Lake Balaton. As part of his journey to Palestine, he crossed through Germany (Munich and Holzhausen), in 1947 continued to France (Port-de-Bouc), boarded the "Exodus" ship, was sent to Hamburg, then Marseilles and finally let into Israel through Haifa to live on a kibbutz. In May 1948, he joined the Palmach and fought in the War of Independence, specifically in battles for Jerusalem and later in the Sinai desert. He contracted malaria, later developed a skin disease and then suffered from shell shock. In 1950, he was discharged from the army against his will and developed obsessive and intrusive thoughts that interfered with his everyday functioning, such as the fear that his hair was falling out. Thinking that the warm climate was at fault, he decided to immigrate to Winnipeg, Canada. He lived in Montreal, Toronto and Brooklyn. In 1960, he moved back to Israel, got married and returned with his wife to Canada. Throughout the years, his obsessions and intrusive thoughts continued, got worse in quality, frequency and timing and he developed conflicted feelings regarding the observance of religion and belief in God. To cope, DM has been taking psychiatric medication for the last 14 years, distracts himself, keeps himself busy and feels a need to be in constant motion. He is completely preoccupied with his problems and is in a constant search for peace of mind.