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Thank you Yad Vashem UK Foundation for the opportunity to help remember Rella.

Rachel celebrated her Bat Mitzvah on
2 March 2024 

As part of the preparations for my bat mitzvah I decided to take part in Yad Vashem’s bat mitzvah twinning programme, remembering a young victim of the Holocaust who was killed before she was able to celebrate her bat mitzvah. I have become a Guardian of the Memory of Rella Buchwalter who was one of the 1.5 million Jewish children killed in the Holocaust. I will light a candle in Rella’s memory every year on Holocaust Memorial Day and Yom HaShoah.

I have been twinned with Rella Buchwalter as she was born in Vienna, Austria – the same city that my Opa was born in! She was born in 1930 to Regina, also known as Rivka, and Leon, also known as Isaak. She was deported to Theresienstadt in October 1942. A few months later, in 1943, she was deported again – this time from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she was murdered on 22nd February 1943. Both of Rella’s parents also perished in Auschwitz. Rella’s aunt Rosa and uncle Josef were both shot and murdered in the Shoah. Her other uncle, Adolph, was also murdered in the Shoah.

As far as I know, the only surviving member of her family was her brother, Walter, who submitted the page of testimony to Yad Vashem. I wrote a letter to Walter, to ask if he could share any more information with us but unfortunately there was no response and it may well be that Walter himself has now passed away.

At my bat mitzvah party I displayed my research into Rella Buchwalter, her family, the city where she lived together with what that city is like today.

Learning about this difficult time in our Jewish history has made me so appreciative for the family and friends that surround me and it is very special for me to remember Rella while celebrating my Bat Mitzvah.

Thank you Yad Vashem UK Foundation for the opportunity to help remember Rella.

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