Holocaust survivor who died in China to be brought to Israel for burial

• Published date: 02 October 2021
• Author: JERUSALEM POST STAFF
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Tens of thousands of dollars were successfully raised to fund the operation. Chinese authorities had planned to cremate the man's remains, but the organizations protested, insisting that he be given a traditional Jewish burial.

The man, Shmuel Yosef "Sam" Briskin was a survivor of the Holocaust who was born in France in the 1940s. After the German invasion, his father fled, leaving his family to fend for themselves. Briskin's mother traveled across Europe with her three children, concealing their Jewish identity and hiding them in a monastery until the end of World War II. The family then emigrated to Montreal and Sam later moved to China for work. His health faltered in 2021 several weeks before Rosh Hashanah and he later died alone at a hospital

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"I received a phone call from Shmuel's sister, a 90-year-old woman living in the United States who told of her brother who lived alone in China and was hospitalized due to a severe infection that spread throughout his body," said Rabbi Shalom Hazan, a Chabad emissary based in Shenzhen, China.

"I contacted a Chabad emissary in Hong Kong and the ZAKA organization. Rabbi Yaakov Rosa, chairman of the ZAKA Rabbinical Committee, ruled that he was a Holocaust...