Zahava Rendler, born Golda Feuerberg, March 1941 - Stryi, Poland

Zahava’s family operated a successful leather goods factory before the war, which was taken away once the Germans occupied the town. A factory employee named Stachek urged the family to go into hiding. They agreed and abandoned their home to hide in an underground bunker. Zahava and her sister, Pela, were the only children permitted to hide in the bunker along with their mother Getel, father Mendel, and 28 other people. Although Zahava was very young and asleep most of the time, she was given sleeping pills to keep her from crying as to not give away the hiding place. She remembers the bunker being dark and cold.

Later, Zahava’s parents decided to send her to a Polish woman. Zahava was given false papers with the name Olga Pachulchak. After about a year, the woman thought it was getting too dangerous to hide Zahava, so she put her in a convent. After the war, her father found her, but the nuns did not want to let her go. Her father was able to sneak her out and the family was reunited.

In 1946, they worked with an organization that helped survivors illegally go toPalestine. They were caught by the British and sent to a displaced persons camp on the island of Cyprus. Eventually, they were allowed to settle in Haifa, Israel, where Zahava officially changed her name from Golda to Zahava, which is the Hebrew word for gold. She came to Cincinnati in 1963.

NOTE: Viewing options—watch the full 30-minute candle lighting ceremony, or view the individual survivors’ stories like this video, separately.