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Obituaries

Obituary: David Last

Textile entrepreneur who became a Talmudic scholar

July 12, 2018 10:04
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2 min read

Having survived the Holocaust with his family, David Last, who has died aged 91, arrived in London as a teenager and worked to support his parents. A successful textile entrepreneur, he discovered his true calling was the study of Judaism.

The youngest of the seven children of Chaim Moshe Weisel and Malka Gittel, in Rozwadow, Poland, David was nurtured by a close family unit, but as he was 11 years younger than his nearest sibling, his early years were often lonely. His schooldays, a combination of Polish school and Cheder, were fraught with Antisemitic attacks by street gangs. More distressing still, was the appearance at shul every Friday night of destitute, hungry and worn-out Jews who came into town from the surrounding villages, seeking hospitality.

Within a fortnight of the German troops’ arrival in September 1939, David, his family and some 2000 fellow citizens of Rozwadow, were evicted. After two days on the road, they narrowly escaped a gang of Polish vigilantes, thanks to the life-saving protection of a kindly farmer. Passing through deserted Jewish towns, they arrived in Lemberg (Lvov) and were transported by cattle truck to Siberia. Here three families lived together on meagre rations in one bare barrack without sanitation, working as forced labourers in the surrounding forests.

Released penniless among Russian Tartars, his older brother and sister looked desperately for work. Meanwhile, David made up for his lost school years by taking catch-up lessons, squeezing five years’ of classes into one. But by 1945, his studies were again cut short. His parents procured false travel documents and apart from one brother who was conscripted, the family returned to Poland to discover their former house occupied by hostile strangers.