The Boy from the Displaced Persons Camp Who Never Stopped Searching

By: Yaakov Rosenfeld, Ganzach Kiddush Hashem

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Today (Nissan 12 5705/April 10th, 2025), Yisrael Katzover, the veteran journalist for the Hamodia newspaper, whose security analyses and commentaries accompanied generations of chassidim and men of action for whom “A. Pe’er” (his pen name) was the only source of news, especially during wars and security crises, which were never lacking here.

“A. Pe’er,” who wrote in clear Hebrew and whose commentaries were sharp and harsh, was born, surprisingly, in a displaced persons camp in Austria to parents who were Holocaust survivors. The life of the esteemed writer Yisrael Katzover was always in the shadow of the horrors of the Holocaust, also, and perhaps mainly, due to a family secret that accompanied him from the day he became aware of it: the secret of the disappearance of his only brother, the tender infant who was cunningly kidnapped from his dear parents in the midst of the storm of escape from those who wanted to kill them.

Yisrael’s parents lived in the town of Azerian in the Volynia region, both from deeply-rooted chassidic families, he from Belz and she from Czortkow. They went through the Holocaust in a very difficult way, experiencing things that are indescribable, but the grief that resided in their hearts all their days since the disappearance of little Shlomo Baruch was the most unbearable.

The house where the Katzover parents hid and from where Shlomo Baruch was taken by trickery

The parents dedicated their lives to searching for their lost son; the mother went from house to house, knowing that she might be murdered, but she never thought of giving up. The father also did not stop the dangerous search. He would often leave his hiding place in the forest and enter the town to search, until on one of his dangerous visits he was shot and wounded. His life was in danger, as he had lost a lot of blood.

Yisrael Katzover himself, who was born in the DP camp and immigrated to Israel on an illegal immigrant ship with his parents, grew up in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Yisrael and experienced the horrors of the War of Independence. The sound of the whistling shells accompanied him his entire life. He lived in Beit Yisrael for a long time until a Jordanian shell destroyed their house. After the war they moved to Katamon, where he grew up in the company of Satmar chassidim.

The holy Belzer Rebbe z”l would come to stay in their home in Katamon every summer. During that time, Yisrael became friends with his nephew, the current Belzer Rebbe, who would come to visit his uncle.

Yisrael Katzover was considered a great and veteran writer. He covered all the security conflicts in the country and cultivated connections with security sources, as well as with many Torah scholars, whose homes he would appear at their request and describe the situation to them to his satisfaction.

Yisrael Katzover did not stop searching for his lost brother and invested a great deal of money and enormous efforts in his search. Countless times he traveled to the area of ​​the kidnapping and killing and searched without despair. He also hired an investigation company that was rewarded with huge sums but suffered bitter disappointments, and once, when he had almost figured something out, the connection was suddenly severed and all his efforts went down the drain.

Yisrael Katzover, whose biography was written (in English) by the author Nachman Seltzer in a fascinating book called “The Insider,” was known for his rare connections with great Jewish figures, such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and other great and righteous men.

A wonderful story from the mouth of Yisrael Katzover himself about the miraculous words he heard from the holy Gerrer Rebbe, the “Pnei Menachem” z”l, regarding the future of Yitzchak Rabin, can be read in the following link (in Hebrew): https://kol-barama.co.il/item/%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C-%D7%A7%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A8-%D7%91%D7%92%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%94%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%9D-%D7%97%D7%96%D7%94/

Yisrael Katzover (in an interview with the newspaper “Mishpacha”, Kislev 10, 5782/Nov. 21st, 2021) said of himself: “My life memories are the life stories of the people of Israel in the era after the Holocaust.” May his memory be blessed, and his thousands of readers who admired his professional writing, which was characterized by a rare richness of words with much restraint and delicacy, advocate for him well (in Heaven).