NEPOLOKIVTSI

Ben WALKER (Benjamin WALZER) grew up in Nepolocauti, a small town near Czernowitz, Romania. His grandfather, Nachum ZIMMER had a big farm in that village and his father owned a store in another small town. In 1941, the family was deported to Transnistria in western Ukraine, to an area near the city of Mogilev. During the war, his father, sister, uncles and grandparents perished.  Ben and his mother were the only survivors.

After the war, Ben and his mother moved back to Czernowitz. There was nothing left; even his grandfather’s farm had been converted to a kolhoz (a collective farm under the Soviets) and was divided among the local peasants. Ben and his mother moved out of the area, which had become part of the Ukraine, to Romania. He and his mother emigrated to Israel, where Ben lived on a kibbutz for two years and then served in the Israeli Defense Force.
Ben’s mother had in the meantime moved to be close to relatives in Orlando, Florida, and in 1956, Ben joined her.

Ben attended college in Florida, where he met his future wife, Ruth TENENBAUM, whose parents left Nepolocauti in 1939 for Chile.
After graduation, Ben and Ruth moved to Tampa, where he directed a Hebrew school.
Ben continued his studies in Jewish education in graduate school in Syracuse, New York, then took a position in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The Walker family moved to Atlanta in the late sixties, where Ben was the director of religious education at Temple Sinai. Since retiring, Ben has continued to work part time as an insurance broker and in real estate. Ben and his wife have two daughters, one of whom is a judge Atlanta, and the other, an attorney with the Georgia Advocacy Project. The Walkers also have two grandchildren. Ben is a Survor Speaker for The Breman's Holocaust education program.

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