Yaakov Zilberstein, affectionately known by his friends as Yankele, was born in the shtetl—a vibrant Jewish community filled with spiritual atmosphere—in the town of Tomaszów Mazowiecki, located near Łódź, Poland, nestled among three rivers that created a peaceful ambiance.
Alongside his studies in the yeshiva and his dream of becoming a great rabbi, Yankele, like his friends, loved to play soccer during school breaks, keep up with current events, and glance through the secular daily newspaper Hayntike Nayes, which reported on the games of Maccabi and Maccabi Krakow—teams that proudly wore blue and white uniforms with the Star of David, unafraid of the antisemitism they faced.
These were the foggy days on the eve of war, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, World War II erupted. On the 13th of September, the face of his town changed—on the eve of the Jewish New Year, the Germans entered the city.
Yankele was arrested by German soldiers. “Come here, boy, help us with this. Finish the task and you’ll return to your parents.”
At the end of that day, as the sun set and Rosh Hashanah began, with its prayers echoing in his mind, Yankele was taken along with 90 other townspeople—30 of them boys aged 14–15 like him—on a journey through hell. He would never again see any member of his family and was left alone in the world.
On Rosh Hashanah, instead of apples and honey, he was forced into hard labor without food or water. With no mother to come and show him compassion, Yankele arrived at the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp.
Three years later, on October 15, 1942, Yankele was transferred in a cattle train to the Auschwitz death camp. Upon arrival, as they were led to their slaughter, the prisoners were ordered: “Take off your clothes, go take a shower.” Suddenly, a man on a motorcycle appeared and shouted, “Stop! These are craftsmen—we need them here as skilled workers.”
Despite the harsh labor, starvation, and the body’s weakening will to live, a resistance began to form and grow within Auschwitz III—Buna Monowitz. This international underground movement, composed of both political and Jewish prisoners—including the frail yeshiva student Yankele—started secretly transferring gunpowder to Auschwitz II in an effort to blow up the crematoria. Eventually, the revolt failed, and only Crematorium IV was destroyed on October 7, 1944.
Yankele was caught due to an informant. The German guards lashed him with a 75-strand whip made of animal tail, demanding he count each blow. Yankele counted the lashes, recited the Shema Yisrael, and fainted. He was carried away on a stretcher. Days later, summoned again for interrogation, he refused to betray the names of his comrades. Another 75 lashes. Again, he fainted. Again and again, he was brought in and tortured. At one point he was hung from a tree by both hands raised above his head—but he remained silent, never revealing the names of those in the resistance. In the heart of the inferno, with his life hanging by a thread, this was true Jewish heroism.
Yankele survived the 60-kilometer death march back to Buchenwald and was liberated on April 11, 1945.
He made his way to the Land of Israel via displaced persons camps in Italy, where he was among the founders of “Kibbutz Aliyah.” There, he and his friends took in and cared for orphaned children in preparation for immigration to Israel. On the way, aboard the ship Bracha Fold, they were intercepted by the British and sent to a detention camp in Cyprus. There, Yankele married the love of his life, Rachel—a fellow Holocaust survivor. In June 1947, before the establishment of the State of Israel, they arrived in the country and settled in the town of Rishon LeZion, where Yankele joined the local defense force.
In 1978, before Israel and Poland had diplomatic relations, Yankele marched at the head of a delegation of Holocaust survivor organizations through Auschwitz. With his head held high, he carried a large Israeli flag—the first time such a flag had been seen on Polish soil at the death camp. Ignoring Polish soldiers who demanded he remove the flag, he walked proudly, unafraid of arrest.
Like his parents, Yankele followed the path of the Gur Hasidic dynasty. He began studying in a cheder (traditional Jewish school) as a child, and as a teenager, continued at the famed Yeshiva of Chachmei Lublin. After proving mastery of over 400 pages of Talmud, he was accepted into the yeshiva.
When he arrived at Buchenwald, he was welcomed as a spiritual father by Rabbi and Professor Frankfurter, who asked him before his death: “Tell the world what happened here.” Yankele honored this final wish by lecturing in Israel and around the world.
Through these lectures, he reconnected with Maccabi Tel Aviv, which he saw as the spiritual successor of the fearless Maccabi Poland teams. His love for the club was passed on to his grandson Daniel, who continues to proudly support Maccabi to this day.
Yankele was laid to rest in the Land of Israel as a free man on November 24, 2021, at the age of 100 years and one month.
May his memory be a blessing.
