Minister Ariel at Auschwitz. Photo: Knesset spokesman.

Before Israeli Knesset Member Uri Ariel, Minister of Construction and Housing, embarked on his recent trip to Poland together with some 60 other MKs, he received a special request. He was provided with a Tallit [prayer shawl] belonging to Shlomo Yom Tov Hauft, a Holocaust survivor, and was asked to recite the Kaddish [memorial prayer]  in Auschwitz while donning it. The Tallit has a unique history. More than 80 years old, it had accompanied Hauft throughout the Holocaust, hidden by him several times, once in the ground for a month. Minister Ariel received the Tallit and the unique request from Hauft’s son.

In Auschwitz Minister Ariel donned the Tallit and recited the Kaddish, explaining to those present the significance of the event. He also mentioned his relatives who perished in the Nazi death camp: “My maternal grandfather Moshe, my maternal grandmother Sarah and my uncle Shmuel perished here together with their entire family. No one survived. My Father’s family left Germany in 1936. They survived.”

Hauft originally received the Tallit when he became Bar Mitzvah and he did his utmost during the Holocaust to wear it for prayers, even though it was life-endangering. Hauft managed to escape from Auschwitz, but his father did not; he died in the spring of 1944.

The Tallit is the Hauft family’s lone and most precious surviving article from Europe and it has gone through a special preservation process. Hauft immigrated to Israel after the Holocaust, becoming a politician in the Tsfat municipality.

Watch Minister Ariel reciting Kaddish at Auschwitz below: