Mendel Menakhem Yehoshua Pasternak was born in Poland, Poland, 1917 to Gedalje and Razmari Rucheleh Zelda. Prior to WWII he lived in Wolyn,Poland, Poland. During the war he was in Auschwitz, Poland. Mendel Menakhem Yehoshua survived the Shoah.
Jews deported to or imprisoned in camps, ghettos or forced labor frameworks, who were in hiding, in clandestinity or resistance formations, or suffered relentless persecution under antisemitic legislation in territories controlled by the Nazis or their allies, and were alive by the end of 1945 are considered Shoah survivors.