The former head of the Israeli Society of Friends of the Czech Republic has died. He survived Auschwitz, hiding in Prague

His death was reported by the Czech Embassy in Israel, where Harshalom had been working since 1949. He had an Israeli and an Esk religion. In 2016, he received the Gratias Agit award for his active work in restoring relations between the two countries, which is awarded by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs to compatriots and citizens of the Czech Republic for the good name of the republic abroad.

Harshalom was born Adam Friedberg on November 4, 1925 in Pruany, then Poland, now Belarus. His native language was Yiddish, thus he mastered the culture and routine, he studied at the Hebrew gymnasium, he mentioned in his biography the website of the organization Pam nroda.

The Friedbergs first had to flee to the wolves in the ghetto in Pruany, which the Nazis built there, later the whole family was deported to the extermination camp in Auschwitz. Avraham worked there in the work teams, he was the only one from the family – his parents died in the gas chambers, his older brother also perished in the tboe.

In June 1944, Harshalom tried to tk, but was caught. He later got to the camp in Buchenwald and in March 1945, together with two other prisoners, he escaped from the transport in Litomice. They went to Prague with a freight train with coal and were taken over by the Sobotkov family at the mine in Bubny. Two months later, she bloodied three young women – first at her home, later in a closed shop in Dlnick Street.

In 1963, Jiina Sobotkov received the Justice among Nations award in Israel alongside those who saved her. The title was awarded by the Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial Yad Vaem to people of non-Jewish origin who, as a kind of world wolf, selflessly helped persecuted Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.

When the Prague Uprising broke out in May 1945, Harshalom took part in the fighting, for which he received Slovakia’s superannuation. At the age of twenty, he began to learn Czech.

After the flight, he studied at the BUT for many years, in Olomouc and Liberec he completed flight training for the newly established Stt Israel, which took place in what was then Slovakia. After the communist coup, he went to Israel, where he served as an army air force pilot and then became an entrepreneur in electrical engineering. He named the holding company Ariel after the aircraft depot where he served.

In 1992, the Czech translation of the book Reborn from the Ashes was published, where Avraham Harshalom told his remarkable life story. A documentary of the same name was created to accompany the book.