Biography

We divided Naftali's life into 4 sections

• Pre-War Years

• Holocaust

• Israel 

• America

Each section begins with the sequence of events that took place during that part of the Naftali's life, followed by boxes that give more detail about people or aspects of the period.

We added a page about his home town, Zmigrod, since his birthplace was very central to his background.  Indeed, the town of Zmigrod came to life for us as a character with its own personality through the many stories Naftali shared with us.

Names and Pronunciation

Naftali came from Galicia, an area of Poland near the Carpathian Mountains which had formerly been part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  Jews from this area pronounced Hebrew differently from the standard pronunciation used among American Orthodox Jews raised in Yeshiva Day schools.  They sounded the Komatz (uh) sound as Ooo.  The Tzaire (long a) was pronounced Ay like the word eye.  The Chirik (ee) was uh.  Therefore, Naftali would have grown up hearing his name as Naftula or shortened to Tula.  His father was Duvid.  His sister Baila would have been Biylu.  For convenience, we use the American Yeshiva Day school spelling. 

Naftali's parents gave each child a Hebrew or Yiddish names: Malka, Esther, Miriam, Baila, and Golda.  When the girls joined Zionist youth groups as teens, they were steered away from overly Jewish names.  The new names were Molly, Manya, Bertha, and Zahava.  These were the names that they used to the end of their lives.  For consistency, we keep the later names even when describing their childhood.