The Man Who Cleans the Kotel

By Menachem Cohen for COLlive.com
Photos by Mendy Hechtman

It was another dark day during the Second World War. A hungry Jewish boy named Binyamin Wertzberger was at work dragging heavy train tracks with his bare thin hands.

When it came time to eat, he hurried with whatever strength he had left, although the food that was served was minimal and bland. He needed it to get through another day in the concentration camp.

Standing in line, a Nazi commander gave him and his fellow inmates a dirty look. “Do you dream of getting to your Jerusalem?” the vicious member of the German army asked.

Wertzberger, who was born in Hungary, remained silent.

“Maybe your ashes will merit to get there through the chimneys of the concentration camp,” the Nazi officer went on to taunt the young Jew.

Wertzberger recalls “going through hell; I was beaten, humiliated, starved and was forced to work in the most difficult circumstances.” But he never forgot the Nazi’s words. He swore that one day he would make it to Jerusalem.

Years later he was exiled with thousands of others to the Austrian-Hungarian border. “We walked for days without food or drink. Whoever was tired or drifted off was shot to death. Bodies were piling up as we walked,” he says.

After a few weeks that seemed like forever, the now much-smaller group arrived at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Upper Austria, which was labeled as “Grade III” (intended to be the toughest camps for the “Incorrigible Political Enemies of the Reich.”)

He was only 17 at the time.

On May 5, 1945, the camp was taken over by soldiers of the 41st Recon Squad of the US 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army, who liberated it after they disarmed the SS policemen.

Wertzberger was thankful he had survived, but quickly learned that he was the only member in his family to remain alive. “I had a brother and 2 sisters and they were all murdered by the Nazis,” he says, eyes closed.

After a long journey, he made it to Israel where he married and raised a family. “Baruch Hashem, they all learned in Yeshiva and lead a life of Torah and Mitzvos,” he says.

When he retired from work, the family hoped he would spend more time with them, but Wertzberger had one more mission in life.

He walked over to the offices of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, the Jerusalem organization involved in physically maintaining and renovating the area of the Kotel.

“I want to work for you,” he told them.

The manager present looked at him strangely. “You are an elderly man. We don’t have a job to offer you,” Wertzberger was told.

But he insisted. “I will do anything you ask. Just let me work here – You won’t be disappointed,” he said.

Wertzberger was given the task of cleaning the stones of the Kotel, and he wakes up at 5 AM every day to do so.

“I never look at the watch when I am at work,” he says. “When I stand near the holy stones, I feel like I’m taking revenge on that Nazi officer. This is my Jewish revenge.”