Simon Zuker

Simon Zuker (also, Shimon Zucker, 1911-1980) a Gerer ḥassid from Łódź, was a businessman, activist and orator for the trade union and Jewish political party in Poland Po’alei Agudath Israel in Poland. He was a death camp survivor and according to the memoir of his brother-in-law, Michael Lubliner, "became especially known for his successful rescue work after the war; he saved hundreds and hundreds of children who had survived in Poland and neighboring countries by hiding in various places." With Rabbi Leibel Cywiak, he founded the Zachor Institute for the Perpetuation of the Memory of European Jewry and published The Unconquerable Spirit: Vignettes of the Jewish Religious Spirit that the Nazis Could Not Destroy (translated by Gertrude Hirschler, 1980). Zuker was the subject of a short article by Elie Wiesel published in The Daily Forward on 5 August 1965. The article identified Zuker as the ḥazzan of a Rosh Hashanah service in the Siegmar-Shoenau concentration camp. (Please contact us to correct or add to this short profile.)