The Heschel School

Sally Kaner was born on October 16, 1905 in Sandomiercz, Poland to Etta Mintz and Baruch Rosenfeld. Sally’s parents had a dry goods store and in addition to Sally, they had three sons, Chiel, Shlomo and Yitzchak as well as two other daughters, Leicha and Chanya. With the exception of Sally, none of them survived the Holocaust. 

Sally grew up going to school and helping her parents in the store. After seven years of school, Sally attended a seminarium which was a five-year high school program that trained teachers. She graduated when she was 17 ½ years old.

In 1930, Sally was introduced through a family friend to Meilech Kaner, a furrier and they married. In 1931, Sally and Meilech had a son, Ya’akov. They moved to Bedzin aka Benjin, Poland where Meilech practiced his trade as a furrier in the nearby town of Katowice. 

When World War II broke out, Sally encouraged Meilech to sneak over the border at night to Russia. The Jews thought that women and children would be safe in Poland while men would not be. Little did they know the horrors that they would encounter. 

In July 1940, the Nazis created a Jewish ghetto in Benjin comprised of over 20,000 local Jews along with 10,000 Jews who were expelled from neighbouring communities. There was a periodic transport of Jews from the “Bendiner ghetto” to the nearby concentration camp of Auschwitz. Luckily, Sally was able to get a job sewing caps for German pilots. In that way, she was able to get some food in the ghetto.

On September 5, 1943, in spite of her working for them, the Nazis rounded Sally up along with dozens of other Jews and started them on a march to Auschwitz. Sally was in Auschwitz from September 5, 1943 until January 18, 1945. 

On the night of January 18, 1945, the Nazis took Sally and many others in open wagons to Ravensbruck, another death camp. This was a camp for women. Sally was told by a woman whom she knew from her town that if she wanted to survive, she should try to get onto a transport out of Ravensbruck. Even though Sally was in her 30’s, Sally was able to join a group of children because of her short stature. That group was taken to a death camp in Germany, Malchow. 

In spite of all of the horrors and deprivation she experienced, Sally survived the Holocaust and was liberated by the Russians on May 3, 1945.

Miraculously Sally and Meilech found each other after the war. Unfortunately, their only child Ya’akov had not survived. Once they were reunited, Sally and Meilech lived in Starnberg, Germany where Sally gave birth to a daughter, whom they named Etta after Sally’s mother. They immigrated to Toronto, Canada in December, 1948. In 1970, Etta married David Nitkin and they have two loving daughters, Ora and Yael, whom Sally and Meilech loved deeply. Yael is married to Zion and is the mother of Heschel students Benjamin and Lianna Uness.