Israel Starck

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Israel “Izzy” Starck was born Israel Storch on 19 July 1929 in Podhorany, near Munkács, then Czechoslovakia, in present-day Ukraine. Known to his family as Srulek, he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household, receiving both religious and secular education. He had three sisters, although his youngest sister died before the war.

Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Israel and his family were forced into the Munkács ghetto and subsequently deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. On arrival, he was separated from his mother and sisters. A fellow prisoner instructed the fourteen-year-old to say he was eighteen during the selection. Following this advice, Israel was selected for forced labor alongside his father. His mother was murdered in the gas chambers.

Israel and his father were transferred to Mauthausen, where they were separated; his father subsequently died in Gusen. Israel was sent to Melk, a Mauthausen subcamp in Austria, where prisoners performed exhausting forced labor constructing underground tunnels. His work included carrying worn steel drill points to a blacksmith for sharpening. Using the available fire, he made charcoal, ground it into powder and shared it with fellow prisoners suffering from dysentery.

When Melk was evacuated in the final weeks of the war, Israel was transferred to Ebensee, another Mauthausen subcamp. He was liberated there by American troops on 6 May 1945, aged fifteen. Returning to his hometown, he discovered that his two older sisters had also survived.

In 1948, Israel immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, establishing a diamond-cutting business. He married Ethel in 1957, and together they raised seven children.