I was part of a family, part of a Jewish community that lived peacefully alongside its Czech neighbors.
Our community reached out to support the needy, educated its children to observe the Torah and its commandments, and believed that redemption would only arrive with the coming of the Messiah.
My innocence was shattered in 1941 when the war came knocking brutally on our door.
One horrific Shabbat, my parents, all my family, and the members of the community were taken to a killing pit, where everyone was murdered. I succeeded in escaping but had no time to part from them with a hug, a kiss, or even a fleeting glance.
My struggle to survive began at that very moment.
I underwent untold suffering in Birkenau, during the death marches, in Mauthausen, which I reached in a totally debilitated state, and in Günskirchen, where I was liberated on the brink of death.
I met good people along the way, Jewish prisoners like myself, and in our isolation, we bonded and became a community of sorts. We held each other upright and gave each other strength.
Together we decided that after the Holocaust, the Jewish people only had one place they could call home—the Land of Israel.
After much wandering and many stealthy border crossings, I boarded the Ma’apilim vessel The Unknown Immigrant, which was intercepted by the British, and its passengers were sent to Cyprus.
In 1947, I immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Together with my friends, I joined Kvutzat Alumot, where for the first time I felt at home and held a weapon. I was a helpless Jew no longer.
When the IDF was established, I enlisted in the Golani Brigade and became one of the 103rd Battalion’s first fighters. The digits tattooed on my flesh in Auschwitz were now joined by a new and triumphant number—that of an IDF soldier.
I fought in the War of Independence, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
I was privileged to raise a family in the State of Israel.
Here too, there are good people whom I met along the way and who offered me assistance, as has always been the custom in Jewish communities.
My wife z"l and all my children served in the Israel Defense Forces, and my grandchildren have proudly enlisted in the Paratroopers Brigade, the Armored Corps, the Navy, the Air Force and the Intelligence Corps, and are all active participants in this war.
I stand before you today as a representative of the Holocaust survivors, the survivors of the glorious Jewish communities, who gathered here from all corners of the world and who contributed to the establishment and growth of the State. I call upon you, the future generations, to remember that we have no other country. We must remain united, because in our unity lies our strength!
Haim Noy
Haim Noy was born in 1929 in the town of Oiber Bistra in Czechoslovakia (today Ukraine) to an Orthodox family of nine. His father, Avraham Noyman from Poland, was a farmer who grew crops and owned a stable and a cowshed. His mother, Rachel, milked the cows and sold the milk. Haim attended a state school, and studied in Yiddish at a heder in the afternoons.
On the eve of World War II the town was annexed by Hungary, and in June 1941 the Hungarians rounded up all the Jews inside the synagogue. Haim escaped barefoot and crossed the river in his nightshirt. He ran a distance of some 10 kilometers to his uncle and aunt, Yosef (Yoske) and Feige Eisner, and hid in their courtyard.
In August 1941, Haim's parents and five of his six siblings were taken to Kamenets-Podolskiy, where they were murdered along with approximately 23,000 Jews. His brother Nachum was studying in Chust at the time, thereby escaping the massacre.
Yosef was conscripted to the Hungarian Labor Service. In 1944 Haim, his Aunt Feige and her children moved to Chust, and were incarcerated in the Chust ghetto in April.
In June 1944, the family was deported to Auschwitz. Haim was selected for the gas chamber with his aunt, but hid under the train and rejoined his brother Nachum in the line.
Haim was put to work removing human waste and sorting through victims' belongings. He survived three selections; during one, he hid in a barracks of Soviet and Polish POWs, and during another, he stood in a pit of excrement that reached his knees. Nachum was murdered in a different selection.
In January 1945 Haim was forced on a death march from Auschwitz, reaching the Mauthausen camp some two weeks later. From there, he was marched to the Günskirchen camp, where he received no food and slept on the frozen ground.
Haim was liberated by the US Army on 4 May 1945. Suffering from typhus, he was hospitalized in Linz. After he had recuperated he discovered that his Uncle Yosef had survived in Chust, and joined him there.
Haim joined Kvutzat Gordonia, passed through the DP camps and reached Sète Port in France on his way to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine). He boarded the ma'apilim (illegal immigrants) vessel, The Anonymous Immigrant in February 1947. The boat was intercepted by the British, who sent the passengers to a detention camp in Cyprus.
Haim reached Eretz Israel later the same year, and was held in the Atlit camp. Upon his release, he reached Kvutzat Alumot in the Galilee and underwent combat training, guarding transportation routes such as the bridge next to Degania. He served in the Golani Brigade's 103rd Battalion in the War of Independence. He fought in several of Israel's wars, including the Yom Kippur War, as a miluim (reserves) soldier, and even volunteered in the reserves for a further five years after completing his military service obligations.
Haim held managerial positions in the Egged bus company for 34 years and then became a tour guide. For many years, he accompanied groups of high school students, IDF soldiers and members of the security forces to Poland, where he told his story.
Haim and Haya z"l, a Holocaust survivor from Poland, have three children, nine grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
