Reb Shmuel’s son, Reb Yitzchak Beirach, related:
On 21 Adar 5769/2009, I visited the valley of death, better known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. I walked the same path that had been trodden by multitudes of our brethren on their final journey to the gas chambers and the crematoria.
A light rain mixed with the tears that fell unchecked. I thought about my grandfather, Reb Yitzchak Beirach, who had walked on his final path during these same early evening hours. He did not merit kever Yisrael; his ashes remained in Auschwitz-Birkenau and his soul hovers above, together with the pure souls of the holy martyrs of the Holocaust.
I mused about how in his final moments, he surely thought of his only son, Reb Chaim Moshe, in far-off Pashkan. Without a doubt, he prayed that he should continue on his pure path.
...Oh, the grounds of cursed Auschwitz!
I stood there, riveted, in front of the gas chambers and the accumulated ashes of the victims. And amidst the pain, I cried to Hashem, “Yisgadel veyiskadesh Shemei Rabba!”
