Josh Segal, born Cegalfarb in Pietrokov, Poland, was a Holocaust survivor. I heard his testimony on a video on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It was of interest to me because Josh was my mother’s cousin and they came from the same town in Poland. Orphaned after the war, Josh was adopted by my mother’s family, my Bubbe and Zadie in Toronto and so, growing up I listened to fragments regarding his life, hiding in the woods, relocating Jewish children and his eventual transport to London.
But hearing his story from his own lips, I discovered he was actually interned in Matthausen, escaped death several times and how his brother, William, joined the Haganah in Paris to relocate Jewish children who had been secreted in cloisters and gentile homes. The smuggling was falsely attributed to Josh. Reminisces about Josh’s working in the town’s glass factory and sneaking potatoes into the ghetto (Pietrokov Trybunalski) could be pulled back from my hazy recollections of stories my mother sparingly shared as I was eternally fascinated by the horrors and traumas of Shoah.