Ben Zion Kalb papers

Ben Zion Kalb (later Colb, 1910-1973) was born in 1910 in Strzyzow, Poland. His father, Reb Abraham Kalb, worked as a shochet, and he had three siblings, a younger brother, Mendel, and two sisters, Malka (later Halpern) and Slava. Slava immigrated to Palestine before World War II. In Krakow in 1937, Ben Zion met Clara Lieber (b. October 20, 1911 in Stryj, Poland) and they were engaged in the summer of 1939. She had four younger brothers: Elimelech, Yoel, Leib and Enzel. After the invasion of Poland, Ben Zion was beaten by German police and fled to Slovakia, where he remained throughout the war. He became involved in smuggling and currency trading, ultimately working with the Slovak resistance organization known as the Working Group, led by Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl. Though Ben Zion made plans for Clara to illegally cross the border using false papers and a smuggler, the situation deteriorated in Poland. Mendel was killed by a German, and Clara, who had escaped to Vishnitz, was deported to the ghetto in Bochnia. She lived in a home that included a member of the Jewish Council named Mandelbaum, who was able to free her after her arrest on several occasions. In early 1943, Ben-Zion was able to contact Clara and instructed her to cross the border to Slovakia. Clara took a train to Zakopane, where she met a man who hid her in a pig sty until one of Ben Zion's associates, Jan Melec, escorted her over the border over the mountains and into Slovakia. In Slovakia, she was given false papers under the name "Helena Knapikova." After Clara crossed the border, Ben Zion became more involved with the Working Group to help others to escape from Poland. He used his own funds to pay couriers and people providing quarters. Rabbi Weissmandl supplemented those funds through the Working Group and through funds sent to international Jewish organizations in Switzerland. Though Ben Zion mainly rescued children, he is also credited with rescuing Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, the Bobover Rebbe, and a number of others of his family, the nuclear physicist, Ludwik Wertenstein, who then died during the Russian siege of Budapest in January 1945, and Mr. Landau from the Bochnia Jewish Council. He also sent a messenger to Yitzhak Zuckerman (leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising) to conduct him and Zivia Lubetkin to Slovakia. They replied saying that they felt they needed to remain in Warsaw. Altogether, Ben Zion succeeded in rescuing hundreds of people, and most likely over 1000. Rabbi Weissmandl married Ben Zion and Clara on July 11, 1943 and the couple spent their honeymoon at the Swiss consulate. Ben Zion continued his rescue work while Clara, using false papers, worked at an export-import business in Slovakia. She narrowly escaped arrest and went into hiding in the late summer of 1944. Clara hid with a woman named Maria Pobjecky while Ben Zion hid in a bunker in the house of Miklos Vrana, an ethnic-German Slovak. Ben Zion was liberated in January 1945 and Clara was liberated in April. They reunited and moved to Prague. Discovering that no relatives survived, they decided to immigrate to the United States with the help of Clara's uncle, Yoel Fink. Ben Zion left in 1946, but Clara's immigration was blocked until 1948 due to the Communist takeover. Ben Zion became a successful businessman and active member of his Orthodox synagogue. The couple raised three children, Mark, Melvin and Sherry.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the family of Ben Zion and Clara Colb

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the family of Ben Zion and Clara Colb

Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.

The Ben Zion Kalb papers were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by the family of Ben Zion and Clara Colb, including Mark Colb, in 2014 and 2018. The accessions previously numbered 2014.406.1 and 2018.522.1 have been incorporated into this collection.