We mourn the loss of Jakob Haiblum

Jakob Haiblum was born on October 8, 1925 in Starachowice, Poland. He grew up there with his six siblings. When the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Jakob Haiblum was still attending school. With the outbreak of the war, the Jewish family was forced to move to Starachowice ghetto. For four years, Jakob worked as a forced labourer at the ovens of a munitions factory. In June 1944, he and one of his brothers were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he had to work for IG Farben. At the end of 1944, the SS evacuated the camp. After days in open railway cars via Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, Jakob Haiblum arrived in Flossenbürg in early February 1945. Ten days later, the SS transferred him to the subcamp Saal an der Donau. There, the prisoners had to construct tunnels for an underground aircraft factory of the Messerschmitt-Werke. Because the subcamp did not have enough barracks, the 19-year-old was forced to sleep in an open burrow. Hunger and abuse were part of everyday life. Later, he would describe Saal as the most terrible of all camps. On April 20, 1945, the SS forced the prisoners on death marches towards Dachau concentration camp. There, Jakob Haiblum was liberated on April 29 by the US Army.

By chance Jakob Haiblum found his brother Mendel in Eggenfelden, Lower Bavaria. The two were the only survivors of their family. Until 1949, Jakob Haiblum worked as a carpenter in Eggenfelden. He then followed his brother to Israel. Jakob Haiblum married in 1953. He and his wife Hinda had two sons, Chaim and Josef. He continued to work as a carpenter.

In 1997, Jakob Haiblum visited Saal an der Donau for the first time after the war. He regularly participated in commemorative events and talked about his persecution. Jakob Haiblum had four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He died in Israel on October 27, 2025.

Our thoughts are with Jakob Haiblum and his family during this difficult time, and we send our sincere condolences to them.

Jörg Skriebeleit and the staff of Flossenbürg Memorial