A Torah Was Hidden in Poland for Over 70 Years. One Man is Determined to Have Holocaust Survivors Complete It

As Jews around the world observe Simchat Torah and celebrate another completion of the Torah reading cycle, the 85-year journey of “the Survivor Torah” from Poland is still being written.

The Survivor Torah story begins in 1939 in the tiny northeastern Polish village of Filipów. At the time, the village’s Jews were being rounded up by the Nazis to be deported to Treblinka extermination camp. In a last-minute effort to save the community’s Torah, the town’s rabbi handed the Torah to his non-Jewish neighbor, Tomasz Wróblewski, a shepherd. The rabbi’s directions were simple: Hide this Torah until his return or give it to another Jew who would know what to do with it. The rabbi, along with most of the Jewish population of Filipów, was murdered in Treblinka.

The Wróblewski family kept the Torah hidden under their couch for 75 years. They didn’t know what it was, let alone its sacredness. So over the years, parts of the Torah were sliced away by the family and used for ordinary things like making a handbag and insoles for shoes, and then back under the couch it went. 

But in 2015, the Torah would emerge from hiding because of Jonny Daniels, the British-Israeli founder of the nonprofit From the Depths. Daniels connected with the Torah when volunteers with his organization went to Filipów as part of their mission to find lost Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe. The student volunteers from University of Warsaw had been going door-to-door asking villagers about any remnants of Jewish gravestones they may know of. When they knocked on the door of the Wróblewski home, an elderly couple brought them in, thinking that they were the Jews he’d been awaiting for 76 years. The students, however, weren’t Jewish, and the Wróblewskis said they could only tell their secret to a Jew. So the students returned with Daniels.

“The shepherd lifted up the sofa, and lying on the floor was half of the Torah, It was a shocking sight,” Daniels told The Journal. Rather than bury the damaged Torah, as Jewish law dictates, Daniels saw a much bigger mission for it. “This Torah really is the last survivor from this village. All the Jews from Filipów were taken to Treblinka and killed, but this Torah survived. Now, our opportunity was to bring it back to life.” 

Thus began the Survivor Torah Project, Daniels’ initiative to restore the Torah by having Holocaust survivors from around the world fill in the missing letters. The Torah was ripped from the end of Leviticus onward, so there’s quite a bit to go — over 100,000 letters remain to be written.

“This Torah is being refilled by the very people who survived,” Daniels said. 

To keep the letters looking uniform, Daniels has a Torah Sofer (scribe) outline each of the letters. The process of filling in the letters can take several forms. Most often, the survivor is holding Daniels’ arm as he puts the letters onto the parchment. 

“They’re holding onto me, which also allows women to be involved in as well, and to have this as a Torah that is accepted by everybody,” Daniels said. Daniels has done the process with Orthodox Jewish woman who won’t hold onto his arm, but may hold the end of the feather quill or sit next to Daniels and he writes the letter on their behalf.

“It’s important for me that in the end, this Torah could go into a Hasidic synagogue, into a Reform synagogue — this is a Torah for the entire Jewish people,” Daniels said. Once it is complete, the plan is to have the Survivor Torah be permanently stored at the synagogue inside Beit HaNassi, the residence of the President of Israel in Jerusalem.

Daniels said that many survivors have asked to write multiple letters in the Torah to honor the family members they lost during the Holocaust. He’ll sit with survivors who want to write a letter for each sibling they lost, or for their children or grandchildren.

Since its rediscovery, the Survivor Torah has traveled with him to several countries, including Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, Germany and Poland. Just recently, Daniels drove to a remote town in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania to meet with a Holocaust survivor who lives there alone. In fact, finding Holocaust survivors living their lives in solitude is all-too-common. Daniels said how, during a visit to Los Angeles in 2023, he sat with a Holocaust survivor for three-and-a-half hours at her home in Beverly Hills. 

“She was completely alone, not willing to leave her house,” Daniels said. “But when I brought the Torah to her, it was like she was reconnecting with her past, with her family, with her faith.” So far, over 600 Holocaust survivors from around the world have participated in the restoration of the Torah. This past year, the Torah crossed the equator for the first time, traveling to Brazil. Daniels met survivors in São Paulo, South America’s second-most Jewish city.

“When we brought the Torah to Brazil, the reaction from the survivors was overwhelming,” Daniels said. “Many of them had never heard of the project before, and they were so touched to be part of something that connects them directly to their own history and to Jews around the world.” It’s always in Daniels’ possession, stowed in a thick, locked briefcase wherever he goes. As an Israel Defense Forces veteran, Daniels is confident in being its protectorate. And it’s never, ever checked baggage on an airplane.

Since the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, Daniels has also become one of the go-to Israel information influencers on social media today. But every few days, his posts about the news of the day are interspersed with photos and videos of additions to the Survivor Torah. It’s not lost on him for a moment that the largest single-day murder of Jews since the Holocaust took place last year on Simchat Torah, what was supposed to be one of the most joyous days on the Jewish calendar. This year, the Survivor Torah will be spending Simchat Torah in Los Angeles, where Daniels hopes to have even more Holocaust survivors bring it another letter closer to completion. 

It’s often an occasion where survivors and their families make an entire event out of the moment — even when the arrangements are made at the last minute. “Suddenly the grandkids are wearing the suits and the great-grandkids, these little beautiful Jewish children over there in their best clothes — they understand the beauty and significance of this for their family member,” Daniels said. “And the survivors get a level of closure, conversation and connection. It gives them a level of comfort in what has been a very difficult year for Holocaust survivors who are re-seeing images of Jew hatred that they haven’t seen since the 1930s.”

To arrange a time to have a Holocaust survivor contribute to the Survivor Torah, contact Jonny Daniels on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonnydaniels