Shoah's Shadow

Wolf Bruhl's Journey Across a World at War

Abstract

For most of my life, all I knew about my great-grandfather, Wolf Brühl, was that he had perished in Auschwitz. Determined to uncover his story, I retraced his journey – from his birthplace in Jarosław, Galicia, to Graz, Austria, where he built a life and a family before the Nazis made it impossible for them to stay. He fled across borders, slipping through Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, finally reaching Lyon, France, where he sought papers to rescue his wife and children. But in February 1943, he was captured in the Rue Sainte-Catherine roundup, sent to Drancy, and then deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Yet, Wolf’s story does not end with his death. His wife and children survived, and his youngest son, my grandfather Kurt, later became a leader in the Jewish community of Austria, rebuilding the synagogue in Graz that had been destroyed on Kristallnacht. In 2024, I stood inside that synagogue, placed a stone on Wolf’s memorial, and said Kaddish for him. In traveling his path, I pieced together fragments of a life nearly erased. His story is just one among six million, but telling it is an act of remembrance – and a way to keep my great-grandfather’s legacy of courage alive.