A Torah Is The Last to Leave

B_y Jerry D. Barach

The presentation of a Torah scroll is not an everyday occurrence. It is a special simcha.

Butwben a new Sefer Torah is officially presented at the Young Israel Congregation services tomorrow (Sat.) at the Hebrew Academy, it will have special meaning to Mr. and Mrs. Michael Altman of Cleveland Heights.

For the Torah, to Mr,. Altman, symbolizes the last vestige of his life in Czechoslovakia, a life which saw his mother and four of her 10 children killed by the Nazis. Mr. Altman, a kosher butcher here, himself had two narrow escapes from the clutches of the Nazis. In the second of his escapes, from a camp in Slovakia, he posed as a Gentile worker and managed to scrounge enough food to keep 10 people alive, some of them members of his own family. AFTER THE WAR, Mr. Altman came to this country, following another brother. Two other brothers went to Israel. A fifth brother, a sister and his father ' remained in Czechoslovakia.

Ten years ago, Mr. Altman Mich a el Altman

returned to visit his remaining family in Czechoslovakia. His father at that time asked him to take out the Sefer Torah which had been a part of their family for years.

Mr. Altman said he refused at the time, hoping to get his father to come along, too. But his father was sick and could not come. He died three years ago.

The idea of bringing the Torah out figured again more recently, Mr. Altman relates. He vowed when his daughter became engaged that he would donate it to his congregation here.

He wrote to his brother for the Torah. For some reason (which Mr. Altman does not know), the brother did not arrange for the old family Torah to be brought out, but did obtain another one in Czechoslovakia.

This . brother's son (Mr. Altman's nephew), a student at McGill University in Toronto, picked up the Torah on a visit to Czechoslovakia last year and brought it back to Canada. From there, it was brought to Cleveland by Mr. and Mrs. Altman's daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Wieder.

THERE IS NO ONE left of Mr Altaian's immediate family in Czechoslovakia now. His sister, Mrs. Henry Lovinger and her family, came from there to Cleveland four years ago. His brother left Czechoslovakia last year and is now living in Germany, plartning to go to Israel. With the Sefer Torah now here, Mr. Altman feels that the last of what he wanted to bring out of the old country is now here with him.