Biography
Moshe Lachter is the son of Izak and Chava Surah (Tropen) Lachter. Izak Lachter, was the son of Moshe Lachter. Moshe had six siblings: Malka, Breindel, Etl, Mordechai "Mottel," Aryeh, and Bluma. Izak grew up in Turobin, Poland, and had five siblings: Avraham, Chuma Michal, Miriam, Ozer, and Yosef. Izak's mother died while he was still a child, and his father, Moshe, raised him and his five siblings.
When the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Izak was living in Warsaw and his brother Yosef, in Lodz. They both returned home to their father. Turobin changed hands several time during the first weeks of the war before the Germans finally took control. After the war Izak planned to return to Turobin, but while en route he met an acquaintance who warned him against it. Izak was told that his family had been killed during the war, and that local Poles had murdered two other Jewish survivors who had attempted to return. That same night the house where Izak and several Jewish comrades were staying was raided by members of the Polish Home Army. They were saved at the last minute when a Russian patrol appeared on the scene and fired on the Poles. Izak then decided to leave Poland forever. He fled to the American zone of Germany, where he took up residence at the Lampertheim displaced persons camp. There he met Chava Surah Tropen, and on July 20, 1946 they were wed. In 1946 or 1947 Izak was reunited with his brother Yosef who had survived the war in Kirovograd in the Soviet interior. Isak and Yofef's siblings Avaham, Chana, Miriam, and Ozer all perished in the Holocaust.
Chava Surah Tropen was born on March 24, 1920 in Belszyce, Poland. Her father was deported from the Belszyce ghetto to Majdanek in March 1942. On May 8, 1942 the entire ghetto was liquidated. Most of the Jewish population was either herded into the synagogue and burned alive or shot on the spot. Chava Surah was one of the few who was spared though she lost the remainder of her family on that day. She was deported first to the Budzin concentration camp, then to Majdanek and finally to Auschwitz. In January 1945 she was placed on a death march to Germany. Eventually she reached Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated by the British on April 15, 1945.
