SHMUEL LANGZAM - ESTLEIN
Shmuel Langzam was born in Poland, lancut in 1925.
MAIL: mailto:a.ettie@gmail.com
Survivor: Code: RelatioNet SH LA 25 LA PO
Family Name: LANGZAM
Previous Family Name: ESTLEIN
First Name: SHMUEL
Father Name: YAAKOV
Mother Name: SARA
Brother Name: MOSHE
Brother Name: DAVID
Date of birth: 1925
Town In Holocaust: LANCUT
Map of Lunzut's location
Country In Holocaust: Poland
Profession In Holocaust: student
Shmuel was raised in an ultra religious family in Lancut. As a child he learned in a Heder. He had two brothers.
His father was a painter and his mother a housewife.
Shmuel, as a child helped his grandfather paint the SYNAGOGUE in Lancut, one of the most beautiful in the world.
Lancut During the Holocaust
From Encyclopedia Judaica
The city was taken by the Germans on September 9, 1939, and forced labor decrees put into effect. The local synagogue was set on fire, followed by the expulsion of the Jews of Lancut on September 22, 1939. Most of them were sent into Soviet territory across the San River. Others were widely dispersed over German-occupied territory. At the end of 1939, a few dozen former inhabitants returned, as did Jewish refugees from the Polish territories annexed to the Reich. The Judenrat was headed by Marcus Pohorille. In early 1940, there were about 900 Jews in Lancut, and 1,300 by the end of the year, with the arrival of refugees expelled from Cracow. After the outbreak of the German-Soviet war (June 22, 1941), Jews who had fled to Soviet-held territory or who had been expelled by the Germans in September 1939, tried to return to Lancut to reunite with their families; in November 1941, a number of them were caught and put to death.
Shmuel's family was also deported to Russia .At an early age Shmuel became secular. During WW2 he was drafted to USSR army and served as a messenger. Coming home on vacation, he found that his entire family was gone. In 1948 made Aliya to Israel where he fought in Latrun. In 1951 married Zvia Goldberg and had 2 children Israel and Ettie(Abraham)
My father, Samuel Langzam, spent 5 years in labor camps in Poland. I revealed this fact after his death in 2001, while going through his papers. There was a little note stating the names and years he spent in the camps.
As children, my brother and I were only exposed to my father's stories as a Russian soldier and later, as an Israeli one. It had never occurred to us that 5 years were "lost" and never mentioned. Not even to my mother. To us, he was a war hero.
Shmuel's years in labor camps
Between the years 1940- 1943
My father was at Gliwice (Gleiwitz), Poland. How or why he was moved is unknown to me.
Gleiwitz was an Auschwitz sub camp from July 1944 to January 1945, consisting of four locations working in mining and industrial companies and railroad repair.
He also "worked" at Herman Guring work camp and also worked at "Adolf Hitler Canal, known as the Gleiwitz Canal (Gleiwitzer Kanal, was built from 1935-1939 and opened for service in 1941. On 8 December 1939, it was renamed the Adolf Hitler Canal (Adolf-Hitler-Kanal).
My father did not have a tattoo on his arm.
Between 1943 -1945
Blechhammer was a huge industrial complex in the former county Cosel in Upper Silesia consisting of dozens of different camps with up to 50,000 slave workers of all kinds and nationalities during different periods of time. Such German industries as AEG, Uhde and Dyckerhoff + Widmann were established there. The huge plants of Blechhammer were under construction and were bombed in allied air raids many times in the summer 1944, so they always had to be rebuilt.
My father was at the new sub-camp of Auschwitz III, IV which was called "Arbeitslager Blechhammer" (existing since fall 1940) which was really a slave working camp. He was working at "Oberschlesische Hydrierwerke AG" (synthetic gasoline plants). The camp was mainly peopled by Jews from Upper Silesia.
