HERMAN KAHAN - OBITUARY 

” He survived the Holocaust and became the bearer of tolerance”
 

In the spring of 1945, an American soldier passed a pile of dead bodies in the concentration camp Ebensee and noticed a
hand moving; he took the emaciated man, weighing 33 kg, out of the grave. Herman Kahan (Chaim Hersh Kahan) was then
19 years old. He was born in Sighet Maramures –Transylvania, present-day Romania, to an orthodox Jewish family.
His childhood had been spiritually rich with Torah studies and Jewish culture. He was sent at the age of 12 from his
hometown to study at the famous Munkacz yeshiva. In 1944, Herman together with three of his siblings (who miraculously
all survived the war) were hiding in Budapest with false Christian papers. Worried about his parents, Herman returned to
them and to his little sister in Sighet and sneaked into the Jewish ghetto.
There were about 30,000 people living in Sighet, of whom 15,000 were Jewish. The Jews were all pushed into a few short
streets in extreme density. Shortly after he arrived, all Jews were deported to Auschwitz in cattle wagons; the journey took
three and a half days. He was with his mother, father and younger sister. His mother and sister were gassed immediately
upon arrival.
Herman, together with his father, then managed to survive the impossible at Wolfsberg and Mauthausen and ended in the
slave camp Ebensee, a sub-camp of Matthausen. During liberation of the camp, he was found by American soldier, on a pile
of dead corps as he was moving his hand. His father did survive, but died only 10 days after liberation when Herman was
still unconscious. Herman woke up at an American field hospital a while later. Herman appreciated every moment of his life
given and started immediately making a living in Budapest, knitting and selling socks. He studied a year at a Paris yeshiva
and in the summer of 1949, he was on his way to the USA and visited his sister who had survived and arrived as a
replacement refugee in Oslo.
It was in Oslo that he met for the first time Christian citizens who did him well and behaved unlike the anti-Semites he had
encountered in his birth town. He immediately fell in love with Norway and started working from day one, knitting on
machines he had brought with him from Budapest. He fell in love with Norwegian-born Ester Dante at a Jewish Youth
camp, and she became his wife in 1951. Herman was blessed with five children, 17 grandchildren and more than 40
greatgrandchildren.
In Oslo he succeeded in building his own firm, a sock factory (largest sock factory in Norway in the 1970s) and textile
wholesale and shops and later real estate. He represented Hungarian textile industry- Hungarotex in Norway .
Herman was like a gift to the Jewish Community in Oslo, a third of which was murdered by the Nazis. The little community
needed to rebuild itself. Herman assisted with this from day one with his deep knowledge in Jewish religion and ceremony,
his energy and initiatives. Herman was on the board of the community a lifetime and also functioned as a chairman of the
community in 1988. His heart was in the synagogue. He took an active part in the prayers and also promoted a more active
part from female participation. He always welcomed seeking converts and provided his knowledge with a smile.
Herman was a dominant figure in Oslo and made a huge contribution to many Jewish organizations; the World Zionist
Organization, Bnei Brith, Magbit, Send Jodene Hjem (Soviet Jewry), Board of Governors in University of Tel Aviv, Yad
Vashem Museum, HL senteret – to name a few. Many Norwegian Jews made Aliya with the help of Herman Kahan.
He will also be remembered by his blessed, beautiful, soulful voice and his knowledge in Yiddish literature and song as he
frequently would be asked to perform at events. He would socialize with ambassadors in Norway, whether they were from
Hungary, Germany, Austria, USA or Israel. He would use every chance he had to convey his message to abolish anti-
Semitism everywhere.
Although he lectured about Judaism since 1958, it was only in the 1980s that he opened up the wounds of the Holocaust and
shared his story. Herman Kahan told his story through the hand of author Knut M Hansson in a book Ilden og Lyset –The
Fire and the Light published by Cappelen 1988 and later translated to English and released by Yad Vashem Publisher 2005.
The retelling of the horrors of the Holocaust would be at a very high cost of many nightmares and sleepless nights, but he
felt a call to have his story told as witness. From the late 1980s he also agreed to tell his life story and thousands of school
children students around the country have his story imprinted in their memory for life.
In his childhood at the Cheder in Sighet, his hometown, Herman Kahan shared a desk with the Eliezer Wiesel (Elie Wiesel,
Nobel prize laureate1986 ) and Professor David Weiss Halivni, with whom he also spent time in the camps. As Elie ended
up in New York and Herman in Oslo, they only found out about each other’s existence in the 1960s, when Elie worked as a
journalist. As adults they were both messengers of human value and reconciliation. Their strong friendship lasted until the
very last days when Elie Wiesel passed away in July 2016.

At the age of 87, in February 2013, Herman Kahan was announced Commander of the Order of St Olav, the highest medal
given by Norwegian royalty, for his outstanding contribution to tolerance and understanding across religions and people.
When interviewed by state Television NRK, he was asked how it was to be born again. He answered that every day he felt
he was born again thanks to the Almighty and Norway and the Norwegian people. His main point was not to seek revenge of
any kind. He encouraged talks and discussions, with your friends but also with your so-called “Enemies”. He felt he had won
a prize each time he managed to make an anti-Semite to come to his senses.
In 2015, when he was 89 years old, he was invited by the Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon and Prime Minister Erna
Solberg to join an official trip to Auschwitz death camp, to commemorate the 70 th anniversary of the liberation of the death
camps.
Herman spent endless hours teaching Judaism to anyone who wanted it. With his combined knowledge, charm and beautiful
voice, he demystified Judaism and became an important bridge-builder between Jews and Christians and later on Moslems in
Norway. This work became so significant for himself and his wife, and they established a prize for bridgebuilders, the “Ester
og Herman Kahans Dialog Prize.” Herman lost his wife in 2004 and spent the last 15 years with Rita Goldberg, whom he
met in Israel and who joined him in Norway.
During the last year of his life Herman was ill, and just before his 94 th birthday he passed away, surrounded by his children;
he was holding the tefillin he had been given as a gift by an American soldier in 1945 and had kept close all those years.