Mordechai Moniek Hanani collection

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Mordechai Moniek Hanani collection 

folder 1 

Contains photographs depicting the Wassertail family in Rajcza, Poland. 

Moniek Mordechai was born on April 15, 1924. The Wassertail family was from Rajcza, Poland, where Moniek was born. His father Feiwel owned a textile store in town. Moniek was an only son, who had four sisters: Nettie (b. 1918), Gusta (b. 1920), Ryfka, and Erna. The family was sent to Sucha in April 1940, where they worked in a beer brewery. Moniek and his father worked in building roads. At the end on June 1942 more than 220 Jews were deported from Sucha to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, among them Feiwel and Rachel Lea Wasserteil, Moniek’s parents. In May 1943 Mordechai was deported from Sucha to Bismarchutte camp, a sub camp of Auschwitz. In January 1944 he was transferred to Karwin camp and two months later to Freiburg camp, near Breslau. There Mordechai met his sisters, Nettie, Gusta, and Erna. Erna gave Mordechai her watch for him to exchange it for food. Erna later died in Bergen Belsen. In November 1944 Mordechai was transferred to Waldenburg concentration camp, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen. He was liberated on May 9, 1945 by the Soviet Army. He joined a Zionist youth group, which reached Traviso, Italy and later immigrated to Israel.