14 Facts About Jakob Edelstein

Jakob Edelstein was a Czechoslovak Zionist, social democrat and the first Jewish Elder in the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Jakob Edelstein was born into a devout Ashkenazi Jewish family in Horodenka, a city then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, nowadays in the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine.

Jakob Edelstein's parents were Motl and Mattil Edelstein, and he had a sister called Dora.

When his family returned to Horodenka after the war, Jakob stayed in Brno to finish his studies at a business school.

Jakob Edelstein became a fierce member of the Poale Zion movement and an activist in the Social Democrat Party.

From 1926 Jakob Edelstein was involved in the Hechalutz, a Zionist youth organisation and in World War II a resistance movement, later he worked at their head office.

Jakob Edelstein joined in 1929 the Histadrut, an organisation of trade unions for and later in Israel.

Jakob Edelstein married in 1931 and left Teplitz with his bride Miriam for Prague to work for the Palastina-Amt.

Jakob Edelstein called for the Zionist leaders to head the Jewish community, and became the liaison between the Jewish community and the SS to deal with Jewish emigration.

In 1940 Jakob Edelstein went to Trieste in order to evacuate Czechoslovak Jews.

In January 1943 Jakob Edelstein was replaced as Judenaltester by Paul Eppstein and became his first substitute.

Jakob Edelstein was accused of aiding the escape of inmates and was arrested on November 11,1943.

On 15 December 1943, Jakob Edelstein was deported to the Auschwitz I concentration camp, where he was kept isolated in Block 11 for half a year.

Jakob Edelstein had to watch the murder of first his mother in law then his wife Miriam and his twelve-year-old son Ariel before he was shot to death in the crematorium of the gas chamber.