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We ride toWe remeber so to the world will never forget Ride Remember A Commemorative Survivor Book
We ride toWe remeber so to the world will never forget Ride Remember A Commemorative Survivor Book
Every survivor story is a love story It is love of life Love of family and love of freedom Andy R ti YOW Toronto Holocaust Survivor
Every survivor story is a love story It is love of life Love of family and love of freedom Andy R ti YOW Toronto Holocaust Survivor
2018 We Ride to Remember A Commemorative Survivor Book Created by the Shul Boys Motorcycle Riding Club Cleveland Ohio Mitchell Frankel Editor and Head of Development R2R 2018 Jerry Mignogna Graphic Design Graffiti Caps With Proceeds to benefit the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland Ohio
2018 We Ride to Remember A Commemorative Survivor Book Created by the Shul Boys Motorcycle Riding Club Cleveland Ohio Mitchell Frankel Editor and Head of Development R2R 2018 Jerry Mignogna Graphic Design Graffiti Caps With Proceeds to benefit the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland Ohio
Contents Introduction and Acknowledgments Sponsors JMA Mission JMA Clubs Worldwide About our Beneficiary Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage The Maltz Museum and the Survivor History Project Survivor Stories of JMA Club Members and their Families
Contents Introduction and Acknowledgments Sponsors JMA Mission JMA Clubs Worldwide About our Beneficiary Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage The Maltz Museum and the Survivor History Project Survivor Stories of JMA Club Members and their Families
Introduction and Acknowledgements Over 6 000 000 Jews are documented to have perished in the Holocaust over 15 000 000 people total and maybe more We cannot become complacent and allow ourselves to forget those who were taken from us Each year the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance JMA sponsors a national event in honor of Holocaust victims and survivors known as the Ride to Remember We gather together in the chosen city and exchange stories eat ride and remember those who have perished We celebrate the living and raise funds for a local institution which furthers the cause of Never Forget and Never Again In 2018 our beneficiary will be the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland Ohio I am told that the JMA can trace its history back to October 3 2004 when five Jewish motorcycle clubs gathered for the first time at Mike s Famous Harley Davidson in Delaware Soon after Jeff Mustard of South Florida s King David Bikers organized the first Ride to Remember in Washington D C to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi concentration camps The ride attracted over 150 bikes and approximately 200 attendees and onlookers according to JMA s website The Ride to Remember has grown each year since and has been held in cities across the USA and Canada The Shul Boys want to thank the JMA Board for selecting Cleveland to host the 2018 Ride to Remember It has been an honor to serve The hard work of many Shul Boys helped to make this year s event possible We want to thank many Shul Boys including Club President Ian Abrams and our committee chairs and workers for planning the event and for stepping up to volunteer their time for the cause Special thanks to Rose Viny Event Planning David Rosenblatt Webmaster David Israel Marketing Stew Hastings Government Relations Bob Cohen Rides Routes and Security Shul Boy Bruce Ente JMA Treasurer Ed Forman JMA President Betsy Ahrens JMA R2R Coordinator and the rest of the committee including Ian Mendelsohn Abe and Barb Miller Jeff Helen Anspach Roseanne Kadis Steve Viny Marty Weingold Joni Wasserman Gloria Abrams Sue Frankel and others Thank you to the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage the Rock Roll Hall of Fame and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland for their assistance Thank you to all of those who submitted stories of their relatives or themselves who were survivors of the atrocities of the Holocaust and World War II Finally we want to thank our sponsors listed on a separate page for helping to make all of this possible and allowing us to support the Survivor Memory Project at the Maltz Museum It is our hope that this book lives on well beyond the 2018 Ride to Remember and helps us to assure we Never Forget and that Never Again shall there be a genocide of the Jewish people Mitchell Frankel Shul Boys Editor and Head of Development R2R 2018
Introduction and Acknowledgements Over 6 000 000 Jews are documented to have perished in the Holocaust over 15 000 000 people total and maybe more We cannot become complacent and allow ourselves to forget those who were taken from us Each year the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance JMA sponsors a national event in honor of Holocaust victims and survivors known as the Ride to Remember We gather together in the chosen city and exchange stories eat ride and remember those who have perished We celebrate the living and raise funds for a local institution which furthers the cause of Never Forget and Never Again In 2018 our beneficiary will be the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland Ohio I am told that the JMA can trace its history back to October 3 2004 when five Jewish motorcycle clubs gathered for the first time at Mike s Famous Harley Davidson in Delaware Soon after Jeff Mustard of South Florida s King David Bikers organized the first Ride to Remember in Washington D C to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation from the Nazi concentration camps The ride attracted over 150 bikes and approximately 200 attendees and onlookers according to JMA s website The Ride to Remember has grown each year since and has been held in cities across the USA and Canada The Shul Boys want to thank the JMA Board for selecting Cleveland to host the 2018 Ride to Remember It has been an honor to serve The hard work of many Shul Boys helped to make this year s event possible We want to thank many Shul Boys including Club President Ian Abrams and our committee chairs and workers for planning the event and for stepping up to volunteer their time for the cause Special thanks to Rose Viny Event Planning David Rosenblatt Webmaster David Israel Marketing Stew Hastings Government Relations Bob Cohen Rides Routes and Security Shul Boy Bruce Ente JMA Treasurer Ed Forman JMA President Betsy Ahrens JMA R2R Coordinator and the rest of the committee including Ian Mendelsohn Abe and Barb Miller Jeff Helen Anspach Roseanne Kadis Steve Viny Marty Weingold Joni Wasserman Gloria Abrams Sue Frankel and others Thank you to the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage the Rock Roll Hall of Fame and the Jewish Federation of Cleveland for their assistance Thank you to all of those who submitted stories of their relatives or themselves who were survivors of the atrocities of the Holocaust and World War II Finally we want to thank our sponsors listed on a separate page for helping to make all of this possible and allowing us to support the Survivor Memory Project at the Maltz Museum It is our hope that this book lives on well beyond the 2018 Ride to Remember and helps us to assure we Never Forget and that Never Again shall there be a genocide of the Jewish people Mitchell Frankel Shul Boys Editor and Head of Development R2R 2018
Thank you to our Sponsors Gold 10 000 Nickel 500 to 999 Silver 5 000 to 9 999 Gael David Rosenblatt Shul Boys Cleveland Forest City Benevolent Association Amy Scott Harris I Y Dental Studios McCarthy Lebit Crystal Liffman Foundation Jackie Jeffrey Ponsky Bronze 2 500 to 4 999 Copper 180 to 499 Barb Abe Miller Elk Elk Sue Mitch Frankel Roseanne Michael Kadis Donna Stewart Kohl Rose Steve Viny Double Nickel 1 000 to 2 499 Gloria Ian Abrams Helen Jeffrey Anspach Bob Cohen Embassy Healthcare Judith Robert Eskin Force Indoor Sports Richmond Peter Anderson Michael Attias Brunswick Insurance Chai Riders MC NY Joe Gross Michael Jaffe Beth Loren Margolis New Image Construction Repair Troymill Wood Products Two Wheel Safety Training Joni Steven Wasserman Nancy David Wluka
Thank you to our Sponsors Gold 10 000 Nickel 500 to 999 Silver 5 000 to 9 999 Gael David Rosenblatt Shul Boys Cleveland Forest City Benevolent Association Amy Scott Harris I Y Dental Studios McCarthy Lebit Crystal Liffman Foundation Jackie Jeffrey Ponsky Bronze 2 500 to 4 999 Copper 180 to 499 Barb Abe Miller Elk Elk Sue Mitch Frankel Roseanne Michael Kadis Donna Stewart Kohl Rose Steve Viny Double Nickel 1 000 to 2 499 Gloria Ian Abrams Helen Jeffrey Anspach Bob Cohen Embassy Healthcare Judith Robert Eskin Force Indoor Sports Richmond Peter Anderson Michael Attias Brunswick Insurance Chai Riders MC NY Joe Gross Michael Jaffe Beth Loren Margolis New Image Construction Repair Troymill Wood Products Two Wheel Safety Training Joni Steven Wasserman Nancy David Wluka
The mission of the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance JMA is to create a global environment whereby members of the Jewish faith who ride motorcycles can congregate in person and or electronically to share and exchange ideas and opinions about matters of concern to the Jewish community at large as well as issues specifically concerning motorcycles and motorcycle riding As individuals we share the fundamental passion to ride motorcycles but we are also drawn to our clubs by our common faith and heritage The common thread is our religion however the degree and manner in which we choose to observe the Jewish faith varies among our members Membership or admittance to these clubs is not dictated by faith or brand of motorcycle bikers of any religion or brand of bike are welcome
The mission of the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance JMA is to create a global environment whereby members of the Jewish faith who ride motorcycles can congregate in person and or electronically to share and exchange ideas and opinions about matters of concern to the Jewish community at large as well as issues specifically concerning motorcycles and motorcycle riding As individuals we share the fundamental passion to ride motorcycles but we are also drawn to our clubs by our common faith and heritage The common thread is our religion however the degree and manner in which we choose to observe the Jewish faith varies among our members Membership or admittance to these clubs is not dictated by faith or brand of motorcycle bikers of any religion or brand of bike are welcome
About our Beneficiary Mission Statement The Mission of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is to introduce visitors to the beauty and diversity of that heritage in the context of the American experience It promotes an understanding of Jewish history religion and culture and builds bridges of tolerance and understanding with those of other religions races cultures and ethnic backgrounds serving as an educational resource for Northeast Ohio s Jewish and general communities About the Maltz Museum The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is a lively community space that attracts students adults and groups from the community and around the country Devoted to diversity and tolerance it opened in 2005 with a simple mission to build bridges of tolerance and understanding by sharing Jewish heritage through the lens of the American experience The stories of individuals and families past and present come to life through state of the art exhibitions interactives and films oral histories photographs and artifacts The Museum includes The Temple Tifereth Israel Gallery an internationally recognized collection of Judaica and a special exhibition gallery featuring important exhibitions of national and international acclaim The Maltz Museum and the Survivor History Project at the Maltz Museum
About our Beneficiary Mission Statement The Mission of the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is to introduce visitors to the beauty and diversity of that heritage in the context of the American experience It promotes an understanding of Jewish history religion and culture and builds bridges of tolerance and understanding with those of other religions races cultures and ethnic backgrounds serving as an educational resource for Northeast Ohio s Jewish and general communities About the Maltz Museum The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is a lively community space that attracts students adults and groups from the community and around the country Devoted to diversity and tolerance it opened in 2005 with a simple mission to build bridges of tolerance and understanding by sharing Jewish heritage through the lens of the American experience The stories of individuals and families past and present come to life through state of the art exhibitions interactives and films oral histories photographs and artifacts The Museum includes The Temple Tifereth Israel Gallery an internationally recognized collection of Judaica and a special exhibition gallery featuring important exhibitions of national and international acclaim The Maltz Museum and the Survivor History Project at the Maltz Museum
Survivor Stories The odds were against them Between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 40 000 camps and incarceration sites They were used for forced labor detention and mass murder Mass murder camps included well known names such as Chelmno Belzec Sobibor Treblinka Auschwitz Birkenau and Madjanek Those who survived and thrived and spread out across the world need to tell their stories We requested the following of members of JMA affiliated clubs who were or had a family member who was a survivor Send us a 1940 s era picture along with other more modern pertinent pictures e g visits to camps participation in remembrance events and a picture of the submitter club member with their spouse or family with their motorcycle We also asked them to write about the pictures and the lives of those pictured their stories during and after the war What follows are their stories
Survivor Stories The odds were against them Between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 40 000 camps and incarceration sites They were used for forced labor detention and mass murder Mass murder camps included well known names such as Chelmno Belzec Sobibor Treblinka Auschwitz Birkenau and Madjanek Those who survived and thrived and spread out across the world need to tell their stories We requested the following of members of JMA affiliated clubs who were or had a family member who was a survivor Send us a 1940 s era picture along with other more modern pertinent pictures e g visits to camps participation in remembrance events and a picture of the submitter club member with their spouse or family with their motorcycle We also asked them to write about the pictures and the lives of those pictured their stories during and after the war What follows are their stories
Survivor Name Abraham Heeres Submitted By Max Heeres Club Lost Tribe of Arizona My Dad Abe Heeres Api in Dutch was born in Rotterdam Holland in 1926 to father Yulius Heeres and mother Roosja Brunfels Heeres Api s father Yulius was not Jewish and was the captain of a luxury cruise ship At 60 years old with 3 adult sons all naval officers he marries a 35 year old Jewish woman Roosja which did not make the family happy Yulius died when Api was 8 leaving Roosja alone with Api and his sister Margaretha Chrait When the Nazis invaded they took away Api s mother and sister and the rest of his mother s family never to be seen again Api got away and at 14 years of age joined the Dutch underground and helped smuggle the queen to England He then joined the Dutch marines and fought the rest of the war against the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific After the war Api went over to fight for Israel s independence At first he joined the Machal foreign volunteers and then joined the Palyam which preceded the Israeli navy Api went on to raise four children who all served in the Israeli army Both his sons served in the paratroops My Dad was raised in war and that was all he knew Everyone he loved was taken from him He couldn t let me go to the other room without telling me to be careful He died of cancer at the age of 54
Survivor Name Abraham Heeres Submitted By Max Heeres Club Lost Tribe of Arizona My Dad Abe Heeres Api in Dutch was born in Rotterdam Holland in 1926 to father Yulius Heeres and mother Roosja Brunfels Heeres Api s father Yulius was not Jewish and was the captain of a luxury cruise ship At 60 years old with 3 adult sons all naval officers he marries a 35 year old Jewish woman Roosja which did not make the family happy Yulius died when Api was 8 leaving Roosja alone with Api and his sister Margaretha Chrait When the Nazis invaded they took away Api s mother and sister and the rest of his mother s family never to be seen again Api got away and at 14 years of age joined the Dutch underground and helped smuggle the queen to England He then joined the Dutch marines and fought the rest of the war against the Germans in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific After the war Api went over to fight for Israel s independence At first he joined the Machal foreign volunteers and then joined the Palyam which preceded the Israeli navy Api went on to raise four children who all served in the Israeli army Both his sons served in the paratroops My Dad was raised in war and that was all he knew Everyone he loved was taken from him He couldn t let me go to the other room without telling me to be careful He died of cancer at the age of 54
Survivor Names Ibolya Szalai Grossman Andy R ti Submitted By Andy R ti Club YOW Toronto I AM A BIKER BECAUSE OF MY MOTHER AND THE HOLOCAUST By Andy R ti I was born in Budapest Hungary in July 1942 making me a young child Holocaust Survivor My mother and I survived together in the ghetto but my father did not During the Hungarian uprising in 1956 we were able to escape and settle in Canada In 1958 my mother married fellow survivor Emil Grossman who became my wonderful stepfather In 1990 my mother wrote her memoir An Ordinary Woman in Extraordinary Times and while she was still alive I wrote a sequel to it The two books were combined under the title Stronger Together published by the Azrieli Foundation The books are distributed free of charge to schools in Canada At the book launch in 2016 I said the following Tonight is more than a book launching It s a tribute to my mother my father my grandparents and a celebration of LIFE I think it is very interesting that our lives our freedom and our existing family started 60 years ago when we left Hungary during the 1956 uprising against Communism After my mother passed away in 2005 I became a Survivor Speaker and shared our story with thousands of students As of tonight thanks to the incredible foresight of David Azrieli our stories will be known by thousands more In the audience there are people representing all aspects and stages of my life my family the taxi business real estate friends from the Holocaust and Wiesenthal centres fellow writers and of course my biker buddies I am especially pleased to have my oldest friend Mike Andradi here tonight Our friendship goes back all the way to grade one When we were 17 years old Mike and I actually mostly Mike I just watched put together our first motorcycle from two baskets of parts that we shared for one glorious biking summer before it was repossessed Yep it was stolen but we of course didn t know that when we bought those two baskets I was asked to share something about myself that is not well known and is not in the book I am a biker because of my mother and the Holocaust For the last 14 years motorcycling has become a big part of my life and is included in each of my Holocaust presentations I consider motorcycles to represent freedom My connection to motorcycles goes back to the time after our liberation when we were putting our lives back together When I was six years old my mother allowed me to ride a full size motorcycle in an amusement park in Budapest By that time we knew that my father would never return to us and together with my grandparents she tried to compensate for that horrible loss by trying to give me as much as she could She was very progressive in her child rearing techniques and in her role as both mother and father she raised me to be independent To my surprise she did not remember that first ride I bought my first new bike at age 60 and she did not want to believe that inadvertently she got me started on my biking career Now my son David and my daughter Kathy will present a short reading from the book written by my mother titled Book of Tears I put down the little book that I had received from the Jewish community of P cs in 1987 and covering my eyes with my hands I cried and cried The little twenty by fifteen centimetre book had the title Book of Tears embossed in gold letters in Hungarian and Hebrew on the black cover and a black silk cord to keep the pages together On every page in a black frame there were names Four thousand of them in total Names of the Jewish martyrs who were deported and killed from my home town P cs As I read the familiar names a kaleidoscope of pictures ran through my mind
Survivor Names Ibolya Szalai Grossman Andy R ti Submitted By Andy R ti Club YOW Toronto I AM A BIKER BECAUSE OF MY MOTHER AND THE HOLOCAUST By Andy R ti I was born in Budapest Hungary in July 1942 making me a young child Holocaust Survivor My mother and I survived together in the ghetto but my father did not During the Hungarian uprising in 1956 we were able to escape and settle in Canada In 1958 my mother married fellow survivor Emil Grossman who became my wonderful stepfather In 1990 my mother wrote her memoir An Ordinary Woman in Extraordinary Times and while she was still alive I wrote a sequel to it The two books were combined under the title Stronger Together published by the Azrieli Foundation The books are distributed free of charge to schools in Canada At the book launch in 2016 I said the following Tonight is more than a book launching It s a tribute to my mother my father my grandparents and a celebration of LIFE I think it is very interesting that our lives our freedom and our existing family started 60 years ago when we left Hungary during the 1956 uprising against Communism After my mother passed away in 2005 I became a Survivor Speaker and shared our story with thousands of students As of tonight thanks to the incredible foresight of David Azrieli our stories will be known by thousands more In the audience there are people representing all aspects and stages of my life my family the taxi business real estate friends from the Holocaust and Wiesenthal centres fellow writers and of course my biker buddies I am especially pleased to have my oldest friend Mike Andradi here tonight Our friendship goes back all the way to grade one When we were 17 years old Mike and I actually mostly Mike I just watched put together our first motorcycle from two baskets of parts that we shared for one glorious biking summer before it was repossessed Yep it was stolen but we of course didn t know that when we bought those two baskets I was asked to share something about myself that is not well known and is not in the book I am a biker because of my mother and the Holocaust For the last 14 years motorcycling has become a big part of my life and is included in each of my Holocaust presentations I consider motorcycles to represent freedom My connection to motorcycles goes back to the time after our liberation when we were putting our lives back together When I was six years old my mother allowed me to ride a full size motorcycle in an amusement park in Budapest By that time we knew that my father would never return to us and together with my grandparents she tried to compensate for that horrible loss by trying to give me as much as she could She was very progressive in her child rearing techniques and in her role as both mother and father she raised me to be independent To my surprise she did not remember that first ride I bought my first new bike at age 60 and she did not want to believe that inadvertently she got me started on my biking career Now my son David and my daughter Kathy will present a short reading from the book written by my mother titled Book of Tears I put down the little book that I had received from the Jewish community of P cs in 1987 and covering my eyes with my hands I cried and cried The little twenty by fifteen centimetre book had the title Book of Tears embossed in gold letters in Hungarian and Hebrew on the black cover and a black silk cord to keep the pages together On every page in a black frame there were names Four thousand of them in total Names of the Jewish martyrs who were deported and killed from my home town P cs As I read the familiar names a kaleidoscope of pictures ran through my mind
I looked up my father s name first Szalai Ignacz I saw myself as a little girl in his tinsmith shop I liked to watch my father s skillful hands work as he made cans buckets cake pans and other household items from tin The whole city had known him for his honesty integrity and diligence When the Jewish community sent me the Book of Tears at my request it included the following note The president of the Jewish community of P cs remembers your father very well He even remembers that there were three steps to enter your father s shop I was very touched that after so many decades people still remembered my father I read the next name my mother s Szalai Laura In my mind s eye I saw a small woman a little on the plump side whose dark hair had just started to turn grey She had worked so hard all her life taking care of the household raising five daughters and helping out in Father s little shop Just when she should have been starting to have an easier life after the last of her daughters got married Mother was taken away with the rest of the Jewish inhabitants of P cs The next few names in the book are Stern Miksa that of his wife and four of their five children Tibor Zoltan Eva and my best friend Gizi In 1943 during a visit to my parents with my baby son we took an excursion with the Stern family While we ate our lunch we talked about children among other topics Suddenly six year old Eva remarked I know how babies are born How do you know darling Would you tell me I asked the little girl Then I added I would like to know also I found out from the big book with many pictures in it which is on the shelf Eva replied Then looking around she pointed to my infant son and said in a hushed voice I can t tell you now because the baby would overhear Turning the page I saw the name Dr Sebok Sandor He was the boy who escorted me home once and won my mother s heart with his simple acceptance of the watermelon she offered him Then I saw my older sister s name Margaret She had had such a short lived happiness with Joe Halmos but couldn t marry him because he was a gentile My sister Ilona s name appears next She had been happily married and was only thirty nine years old when she was murdered The next name is her son George who was only eighteen when deported When the Americans liberated the camp he was in they separated the very sick and those with diarrhea from the others George had the latter One night George snuck out of his room and stole some food His starved stomach couldn t tolerate the food he ate and he died the next morning The next familiar name was that of Dr Wallenstein Zoltan He had been the chief Rabbi of P cs and the most handsome man I ever saw At thirteen I was very much in love with him I can still hear his deep toned voice as he recited the prayer to a group of us young girls all dressed in white at our b nai mitzvah I read on Ernest G za He had been our cantor with a clear silver toned voice I could have listened to him for hours I still treasure one of his records with the beautiful melody of Kol Nidre the opening prayer recited on the highest Jewish holy day Yom Kippur Thousands of names Thousands of memories The first ever R2R was in 2005 to the Washington Holocaust Museum The theme for the ride was We ride to remember so the world will not forget I think my mother s beautiful words are a perfect illustration of this belief I rode in that inaugural R2R and a number of others after that In all rides I display a poster of my mother on my bike and I dedicate my rides to her memory My dear mother passed away in 2005 the year we had the first ever R2R I became a Survivor Speaker in 2007 and I think I speak to at least 3000 students annually especially during Holocaust Education Week in November of each year Each presentation includes motorcycles the YOWs my home club and the R2R I don t think I am exaggerating if I say that at least 50 000 people have heard of the R2R from me alone Each presentation includes my thanks to the audience for helping me to honour my mother and her legacy
I looked up my father s name first Szalai Ignacz I saw myself as a little girl in his tinsmith shop I liked to watch my father s skillful hands work as he made cans buckets cake pans and other household items from tin The whole city had known him for his honesty integrity and diligence When the Jewish community sent me the Book of Tears at my request it included the following note The president of the Jewish community of P cs remembers your father very well He even remembers that there were three steps to enter your father s shop I was very touched that after so many decades people still remembered my father I read the next name my mother s Szalai Laura In my mind s eye I saw a small woman a little on the plump side whose dark hair had just started to turn grey She had worked so hard all her life taking care of the household raising five daughters and helping out in Father s little shop Just when she should have been starting to have an easier life after the last of her daughters got married Mother was taken away with the rest of the Jewish inhabitants of P cs The next few names in the book are Stern Miksa that of his wife and four of their five children Tibor Zoltan Eva and my best friend Gizi In 1943 during a visit to my parents with my baby son we took an excursion with the Stern family While we ate our lunch we talked about children among other topics Suddenly six year old Eva remarked I know how babies are born How do you know darling Would you tell me I asked the little girl Then I added I would like to know also I found out from the big book with many pictures in it which is on the shelf Eva replied Then looking around she pointed to my infant son and said in a hushed voice I can t tell you now because the baby would overhear Turning the page I saw the name Dr Sebok Sandor He was the boy who escorted me home once and won my mother s heart with his simple acceptance of the watermelon she offered him Then I saw my older sister s name Margaret She had had such a short lived happiness with Joe Halmos but couldn t marry him because he was a gentile My sister Ilona s name appears next She had been happily married and was only thirty nine years old when she was murdered The next name is her son George who was only eighteen when deported When the Americans liberated the camp he was in they separated the very sick and those with diarrhea from the others George had the latter One night George snuck out of his room and stole some food His starved stomach couldn t tolerate the food he ate and he died the next morning The next familiar name was that of Dr Wallenstein Zoltan He had been the chief Rabbi of P cs and the most handsome man I ever saw At thirteen I was very much in love with him I can still hear his deep toned voice as he recited the prayer to a group of us young girls all dressed in white at our b nai mitzvah I read on Ernest G za He had been our cantor with a clear silver toned voice I could have listened to him for hours I still treasure one of his records with the beautiful melody of Kol Nidre the opening prayer recited on the highest Jewish holy day Yom Kippur Thousands of names Thousands of memories The first ever R2R was in 2005 to the Washington Holocaust Museum The theme for the ride was We ride to remember so the world will not forget I think my mother s beautiful words are a perfect illustration of this belief I rode in that inaugural R2R and a number of others after that In all rides I display a poster of my mother on my bike and I dedicate my rides to her memory My dear mother passed away in 2005 the year we had the first ever R2R I became a Survivor Speaker in 2007 and I think I speak to at least 3000 students annually especially during Holocaust Education Week in November of each year Each presentation includes motorcycles the YOWs my home club and the R2R I don t think I am exaggerating if I say that at least 50 000 people have heard of the R2R from me alone Each presentation includes my thanks to the audience for helping me to honour my mother and her legacy
Survivor Name Icek Kuperberg Submitted By Avi Kuperberg Club Chai Riders MC New York My father was born in Poland He was a survivor of over ten labor and concentration camps He even wrote a book Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor Icek Kuperberg He left behind his stories of resilience for others to read and be inspired After the war he married my mother Lola and went on to rebuild Israel serving as a sergeant in the Israeli Air Force He always told us that he was driving motorcycles in Israel before it became fashionable to do so He probably inspired me to ride later in life as well In his later years he came to live with us up North My favorite picture was of him sitting on my Goldwing with the Israeli flag waving behind him He was proud of me and I will always be proud of him as well
Survivor Name Icek Kuperberg Submitted By Avi Kuperberg Club Chai Riders MC New York My father was born in Poland He was a survivor of over ten labor and concentration camps He even wrote a book Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor Icek Kuperberg He left behind his stories of resilience for others to read and be inspired After the war he married my mother Lola and went on to rebuild Israel serving as a sergeant in the Israeli Air Force He always told us that he was driving motorcycles in Israel before it became fashionable to do so He probably inspired me to ride later in life as well In his later years he came to live with us up North My favorite picture was of him sitting on my Goldwing with the Israeli flag waving behind him He was proud of me and I will always be proud of him as well
Survivor Name Ruth Saffro Submitted By Fred Brostoff Club Chaiway Riders of Chicago Ruth Saffro Neumann age 96 is the mother of my wife Shelly Brostoff Ruth s father Solomon Neumann arranged for Ruth and her sister Bella to flee Germany for the USA in 1937 as Nazi oppression of German Jews was increasing Solomon was unable to move the rest of his family to the U S because the U S would not accept his son Rolf who had Down s Syndrome Ruth s family had lived in Sennfeld Germany near Mannheim for hundreds of years in fact Ruth s father had received the German Cross for bravery in WWI None of that mattered to the Nazis who were determined to remove Jews from German society At age 14 Ruth arrived in the U S and stayed with relatives in Chicago Ruth s sister then 11 ended up with relatives in California Although Ruth spoke no English at the time she arrived in the U S she learned English quickly and graduated from Lakeview High School with her normal class A few years later Ruth met her future husband Yale Saffro of Milwaukee She married Yale after he returned to the U S after serving in the Army Air Corp during WWII With Yale Ruth raised three children in Skokie Illinois and all of the children currently live in the Chicago area Ruth has been a docent at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie and has spoken to many Chicago area high schools about her experiences in Germany
Survivor Name Ruth Saffro Submitted By Fred Brostoff Club Chaiway Riders of Chicago Ruth Saffro Neumann age 96 is the mother of my wife Shelly Brostoff Ruth s father Solomon Neumann arranged for Ruth and her sister Bella to flee Germany for the USA in 1937 as Nazi oppression of German Jews was increasing Solomon was unable to move the rest of his family to the U S because the U S would not accept his son Rolf who had Down s Syndrome Ruth s family had lived in Sennfeld Germany near Mannheim for hundreds of years in fact Ruth s father had received the German Cross for bravery in WWI None of that mattered to the Nazis who were determined to remove Jews from German society At age 14 Ruth arrived in the U S and stayed with relatives in Chicago Ruth s sister then 11 ended up with relatives in California Although Ruth spoke no English at the time she arrived in the U S she learned English quickly and graduated from Lakeview High School with her normal class A few years later Ruth met her future husband Yale Saffro of Milwaukee She married Yale after he returned to the U S after serving in the Army Air Corp during WWII With Yale Ruth raised three children in Skokie Illinois and all of the children currently live in the Chicago area Ruth has been a docent at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie and has spoken to many Chicago area high schools about her experiences in Germany
Survivor Name Elijah Polak Submitted By Andria Young Club Shul Boys Cleveland I was born in Bialystok Poland in 1931 My father was a civil engineer and my mother was a housewife In the years preceding WW II we lived in Kaunas Lithuania population 150 000 including 35 000 Jews In June 1941 the Germans occupied Lithuania and together with all the other Kaunas Jews that did not get killed in the first few days of the occupation by members of the Lithuanian Rifle Club my father Isaac my mother Fruma and my uncle Paul were confined in the ghetto The residents of the ghetto were subjected to several extermination roundups Akzionen In the children s Akzion of March 27 1944 almost all the children of the ghetto and the surrounding camps were removed to be murdered In June 1944 as the Red Army drew nearer the German army retreated and the SS decided to move the Jews that remained in the Ghetto to extermination camps in Poland The evacuation was by cattle car train During the trip inside Poland two boys jumped off the train One survived and was hidden by a Polish farmer the second was apparently killed when he jumped The first stop was the Stutthof camp where they took off all the women My father my uncle and I and the other men were brought to Landsberg a sub camp of notorious Dachau camp near the city of Munich Ten days later they separated 131 boys including me from the men and sent us to Auschwitz Birkenau camp Close to 100 of these 131 boys perished in Auschwitz Birkenau With the Soviet Army only a few days away on January 18 1945 the SS forced nearly 60 000 Auschwitz Birkenau inmates mostly Jews to march 35 miles for several days to Wodzislaw The SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue More than 15 000 died on the march In Wodzislaw the prisoners were loaded onto unheated freight trains and shipped to Sachsenhausen Gross Rosen Buchenwald Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps I got shipped to Gross Rosen where corpses were stacked like cords of wood After a fairly short stay in Gross Rosen I was shipped to Buchenwald I was liberated in Buchenwald on April 15 1945 by the U S Army In the hope of finding at least one of my parents I returned to Kaunas My father and Uncle Paul were dead my mother survived but went to Bialystok and not to Kaunas Fortunately for me I was admitted to a Jewish orphanage Within a year my mother managed to locate me with the aid of a Jewish agency and to smuggle me to Bialystok My mother got engaged to Lejba Szachnes a miller from nearby Krynki who had been taken prisoner of war by the Soviets in 1939 and spent the war years in Uzbekistan His wife and two children were killed by the Germans He had arranged to immigrate to Australia and my mother and I were to follow once he was established While waiting for papers to immigrate to Australia we were sheltered by cousins in Orleans France My mother and Lejba Szachnes married within days of our arrival in Melbourne Australia in 1949 With the help of Lejba s Krynki connections they bought a very large house in Caulfield a suburb of Melbourne My mother converted it into a boarding house I proceeded to catch up on my education after an eight year gap In 1956 I graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BS in Electrical Engineering and went to work for the Imperial Chemical Industries After a year in industry I decided to pursue graduate studies at the University of California in Berkeley where I was awarded the PhD degree in 1961 I was offered and accepted an Assistant Professor position from the University of California Berkeley where I remained for the rest of my professional life until I retired in January 1993 as a Full Professor While living at the International House I met Ginette Gray and we married in 1961 We have a son and a daughter and three grandchildren Darrell Young is a member of the Shul Boys His wife s Andria s maternal grandmother Sarah Friedman and my mother were sisters Aunt Sarah was of immense help to us in the early years after WW II
Survivor Name Elijah Polak Submitted By Andria Young Club Shul Boys Cleveland I was born in Bialystok Poland in 1931 My father was a civil engineer and my mother was a housewife In the years preceding WW II we lived in Kaunas Lithuania population 150 000 including 35 000 Jews In June 1941 the Germans occupied Lithuania and together with all the other Kaunas Jews that did not get killed in the first few days of the occupation by members of the Lithuanian Rifle Club my father Isaac my mother Fruma and my uncle Paul were confined in the ghetto The residents of the ghetto were subjected to several extermination roundups Akzionen In the children s Akzion of March 27 1944 almost all the children of the ghetto and the surrounding camps were removed to be murdered In June 1944 as the Red Army drew nearer the German army retreated and the SS decided to move the Jews that remained in the Ghetto to extermination camps in Poland The evacuation was by cattle car train During the trip inside Poland two boys jumped off the train One survived and was hidden by a Polish farmer the second was apparently killed when he jumped The first stop was the Stutthof camp where they took off all the women My father my uncle and I and the other men were brought to Landsberg a sub camp of notorious Dachau camp near the city of Munich Ten days later they separated 131 boys including me from the men and sent us to Auschwitz Birkenau camp Close to 100 of these 131 boys perished in Auschwitz Birkenau With the Soviet Army only a few days away on January 18 1945 the SS forced nearly 60 000 Auschwitz Birkenau inmates mostly Jews to march 35 miles for several days to Wodzislaw The SS guards shot anyone who fell behind or could not continue More than 15 000 died on the march In Wodzislaw the prisoners were loaded onto unheated freight trains and shipped to Sachsenhausen Gross Rosen Buchenwald Dachau and Mauthausen concentration camps I got shipped to Gross Rosen where corpses were stacked like cords of wood After a fairly short stay in Gross Rosen I was shipped to Buchenwald I was liberated in Buchenwald on April 15 1945 by the U S Army In the hope of finding at least one of my parents I returned to Kaunas My father and Uncle Paul were dead my mother survived but went to Bialystok and not to Kaunas Fortunately for me I was admitted to a Jewish orphanage Within a year my mother managed to locate me with the aid of a Jewish agency and to smuggle me to Bialystok My mother got engaged to Lejba Szachnes a miller from nearby Krynki who had been taken prisoner of war by the Soviets in 1939 and spent the war years in Uzbekistan His wife and two children were killed by the Germans He had arranged to immigrate to Australia and my mother and I were to follow once he was established While waiting for papers to immigrate to Australia we were sheltered by cousins in Orleans France My mother and Lejba Szachnes married within days of our arrival in Melbourne Australia in 1949 With the help of Lejba s Krynki connections they bought a very large house in Caulfield a suburb of Melbourne My mother converted it into a boarding house I proceeded to catch up on my education after an eight year gap In 1956 I graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BS in Electrical Engineering and went to work for the Imperial Chemical Industries After a year in industry I decided to pursue graduate studies at the University of California in Berkeley where I was awarded the PhD degree in 1961 I was offered and accepted an Assistant Professor position from the University of California Berkeley where I remained for the rest of my professional life until I retired in January 1993 as a Full Professor While living at the International House I met Ginette Gray and we married in 1961 We have a son and a daughter and three grandchildren Darrell Young is a member of the Shul Boys His wife s Andria s maternal grandmother Sarah Friedman and my mother were sisters Aunt Sarah was of immense help to us in the early years after WW II
Survivor Name Sylvia Tsivia Goldfarb Submitted By Sam Blumenstein Club YOW Australia My mother Sylvia Tsivia Goldfarb was born in Parczew Poland in 1927 one of nine children to Shmuel and Masza Goldfarb Moncarz Parczew was a satellite town of the greater Lublin area a rural town with a population made up of over 51 Jews In mid 1940 the Jews were gathered up by the Nazis and the Polish cops and marched to the train station for deportation to Majdanek in downtown Lublin My mother told me the local Poles clapped as the Jews were led out of the town My knowledge of further events is limited to what my mother and Aunt Rachel Ruchel told me in person Many of their family members including extended family remained to die in Majdanek while others like my mother and many members of her immediate family were eventually put in cattle cars and transported in late 1941 to Auschwitz There were only two survivors out of a large extended family my mother and aunt They only survived towards the end of the war in late 1944 because the Nazis needed more workers in a munitions factory close to Auschwitz Birkenau Both girls were shipped there as the information from the Auschwitz museum confirms The Russian army liberated the area at the beginning of 1945 So here you have two young women who survived hell only to be told that the U S England Canada and Australia did not want them They remained in Czechoslovakia until 1949 They were given work freedom a social life along with thousands of other survivors awaiting permits to leave It was only through the generosity of several wealthy Jewish Australian families who sponsored many of these refugees to cover passage and provide livelihoods for these people untill they could establish themselves in Australia My father had a very similar story My parents worked hard raised two sons and moved on with their lives Melbourne Australia was home to one of the largest holocaust survivor populations outside of Israel made possible only by the generosity of local Jews The Australian Government was probably the most lenient in this regard So long as sponsors would cover all costs they did not bar entry into the country This was not the case anywhere else where only family ties would allow you entry
Survivor Name Sylvia Tsivia Goldfarb Submitted By Sam Blumenstein Club YOW Australia My mother Sylvia Tsivia Goldfarb was born in Parczew Poland in 1927 one of nine children to Shmuel and Masza Goldfarb Moncarz Parczew was a satellite town of the greater Lublin area a rural town with a population made up of over 51 Jews In mid 1940 the Jews were gathered up by the Nazis and the Polish cops and marched to the train station for deportation to Majdanek in downtown Lublin My mother told me the local Poles clapped as the Jews were led out of the town My knowledge of further events is limited to what my mother and Aunt Rachel Ruchel told me in person Many of their family members including extended family remained to die in Majdanek while others like my mother and many members of her immediate family were eventually put in cattle cars and transported in late 1941 to Auschwitz There were only two survivors out of a large extended family my mother and aunt They only survived towards the end of the war in late 1944 because the Nazis needed more workers in a munitions factory close to Auschwitz Birkenau Both girls were shipped there as the information from the Auschwitz museum confirms The Russian army liberated the area at the beginning of 1945 So here you have two young women who survived hell only to be told that the U S England Canada and Australia did not want them They remained in Czechoslovakia until 1949 They were given work freedom a social life along with thousands of other survivors awaiting permits to leave It was only through the generosity of several wealthy Jewish Australian families who sponsored many of these refugees to cover passage and provide livelihoods for these people untill they could establish themselves in Australia My father had a very similar story My parents worked hard raised two sons and moved on with their lives Melbourne Australia was home to one of the largest holocaust survivor populations outside of Israel made possible only by the generosity of local Jews The Australian Government was probably the most lenient in this regard So long as sponsors would cover all costs they did not bar entry into the country This was not the case anywhere else where only family ties would allow you entry
Survivor Names Ira Helen Mechlowitz Submitted By Mayer Mechlowitz Club Chai Riders of Detroit Both of my parents are survivors of the Holocaust Both are from Poland My mother resided with her family in Warsaw prior the German attack in 1939 until sometime during the occupation of Warsaw and then she escaped to Russia Her story is documented in the holocaust center in Bloomfield Hills Michigan My father s story on the other hand has been among the first documentaries put together by Steven Spielberg Productions for holocaust survivor recordings His story can be found in the main Holocaust center in Washington DC His memoirs written into a documentary are awaiting publication by Wayne State Holocaust Education Department My fathers escapades include multiple escapes from the hands of Poles who tried to turn him into the Nazis on several occasions and near fatal misses by the Nazis that tried to murder him He was about thirteen and with him in his care was his younger brother Sam who was about nine years old My father lost his father early on then his middle brother and older sister There are many stories that I tell our younger children as well as friends His stories of survival are nothing short of a movie that would keep an audience on the edge of their seats On my mother s side her escape was only due to her father s participation in the Communist Party His participation allowed the knowledge from Russia of the imminent German attack in Poland and prompted them to escape early on Her father mother and little brother made it out alive However her families on her mother s side of 12 siblings some married with children were all murdered I ll stop here so that I won t be creating a rather thick book with these stories My father passed away in 2003 and my mother is our last survivor of both families She is going to be 88 in 2018
Survivor Names Ira Helen Mechlowitz Submitted By Mayer Mechlowitz Club Chai Riders of Detroit Both of my parents are survivors of the Holocaust Both are from Poland My mother resided with her family in Warsaw prior the German attack in 1939 until sometime during the occupation of Warsaw and then she escaped to Russia Her story is documented in the holocaust center in Bloomfield Hills Michigan My father s story on the other hand has been among the first documentaries put together by Steven Spielberg Productions for holocaust survivor recordings His story can be found in the main Holocaust center in Washington DC His memoirs written into a documentary are awaiting publication by Wayne State Holocaust Education Department My fathers escapades include multiple escapes from the hands of Poles who tried to turn him into the Nazis on several occasions and near fatal misses by the Nazis that tried to murder him He was about thirteen and with him in his care was his younger brother Sam who was about nine years old My father lost his father early on then his middle brother and older sister There are many stories that I tell our younger children as well as friends His stories of survival are nothing short of a movie that would keep an audience on the edge of their seats On my mother s side her escape was only due to her father s participation in the Communist Party His participation allowed the knowledge from Russia of the imminent German attack in Poland and prompted them to escape early on Her father mother and little brother made it out alive However her families on her mother s side of 12 siblings some married with children were all murdered I ll stop here so that I won t be creating a rather thick book with these stories My father passed away in 2003 and my mother is our last survivor of both families She is going to be 88 in 2018
Survivor Names Simon Gerda Friedeman Submitted By Ruth Stein Club Thou Shalt Ride Central NY My father Simon Friedeman was arrested and sent to Buchenwald after trying to rescue the Torah scrolls on Kristal Nacht in the synagogue where he was the Cantor in Bielefeld Germany My mother Gerda Friedeman was able to get him out of the camp after three months Because she got him a visa to England he left for England four days before the war started My mother was unable to get a visa for herself so after several months of staying with her parents in M nster Germany she hired smugglers and they bicycled illegally into Holland Her brother in the U S sent her money for sailing to New York and she was on the ship when the Nazis invaded Holland a narrow escape In 1942 my father was able to sail to NYC and they were reunited after a separation of three years My father was the Rabbi in Zanesville Ohio from 1954 1965 Note The photo on the left of my father was one he sent to my mother during the three years that they were separated The family photo below was taken on my mother s 100th birthday in 2014
Survivor Names Simon Gerda Friedeman Submitted By Ruth Stein Club Thou Shalt Ride Central NY My father Simon Friedeman was arrested and sent to Buchenwald after trying to rescue the Torah scrolls on Kristal Nacht in the synagogue where he was the Cantor in Bielefeld Germany My mother Gerda Friedeman was able to get him out of the camp after three months Because she got him a visa to England he left for England four days before the war started My mother was unable to get a visa for herself so after several months of staying with her parents in M nster Germany she hired smugglers and they bicycled illegally into Holland Her brother in the U S sent her money for sailing to New York and she was on the ship when the Nazis invaded Holland a narrow escape In 1942 my father was able to sail to NYC and they were reunited after a separation of three years My father was the Rabbi in Zanesville Ohio from 1954 1965 Note The photo on the left of my father was one he sent to my mother during the three years that they were separated The family photo below was taken on my mother s 100th birthday in 2014
Survivor Name Bluma Joe Polonski Submitted By Rose Viny Club Shul Boys Cleveland Josef Polonski My father Josef Polonski was born in 1925 in Suwalki Poland In 1938 he became a Bar Mitzvah in his hometown synagogue around the corner from where he lived In 1941 at age 15 Josef his mother Sonia his sister Helen and his grandmother Rivka were forced to relocate to the Luk w Poland Ghetto They had to leave everything behind He always said I was never afraid of anything I had enough strength I took chances They had very little food no heat and they slept on straw A year later he was put on a transport train to Treblinka with his mother and sister Separated on the train he never saw them again After six weeks he escaped from Treblinka and returned to the Luk w Ghetto When the Germans emptied the Ghetto he found himself back on a train to Treblinka Knowing where he was going he jumped off the train My father survived by joining the partisan underground and hiding in the woods He was liberated in 1944 After the war he went to Berlin Germany and then to a displaced person DP camp in Eschwege Germany With around 3000 Jewish DPs Eschwege constituted one of the biggest Jewish DP communities in Germany While at the camp he received an education in electronics from ORT He completed his education just prior to Eschwege closing in April of 1949 Anxious to leave Germany he went to Landsberg Germany Jewish Center another DP camp to find passage to America It was at Landsberg that he met a young woman my mom and fell in love Bluma Bojman Polonski My mother Bluma was born on March 10th 1930 in the small rural Jewish town of Wolan w Poland She lived in a large home with her parents Rose and Morris Bojman along with her two sisters Mania and Rachel and three younger brothers The orthodox Jewish family was considered well off Soon things changed In 1939 Germans invaded Poland and the first anti Jewish decrees were issued Displaced people were living with the Bojman family in their home Bluma was 10 years old when she was separated from her family Bluma s mother fled to a nearby town with one of her sons where she thought she would be safe they ended up being sent to Treblinka where they perished The rest of the family was soon sent to a holding camp where they awaited being sent to Auschwitz Bluma survived in concentration camps from 1940 until 1945 She had to learn to survive like an animal was weak and thin from starvation and she had no hair Shortly before her liberation from Auschwitz Bluma was placed in a selection line Josef Mengele known by many as the Angel of Death choking her with his cane pulled her towards the death line Bluma thinking only of survival gave an incorrect ID number tattooed on her arm to the guards and was able to mix herself back in to the line work line saving herself from certain death Bluma was liberated on May 8th 1945 and taken to the Red Cross then to a home where she could get her strength back She then went to the Landsberg immigration center near Munich It was there that she met my father Josef Polonski She also met up with her sister and her future brother in law
Survivor Name Bluma Joe Polonski Submitted By Rose Viny Club Shul Boys Cleveland Josef Polonski My father Josef Polonski was born in 1925 in Suwalki Poland In 1938 he became a Bar Mitzvah in his hometown synagogue around the corner from where he lived In 1941 at age 15 Josef his mother Sonia his sister Helen and his grandmother Rivka were forced to relocate to the Luk w Poland Ghetto They had to leave everything behind He always said I was never afraid of anything I had enough strength I took chances They had very little food no heat and they slept on straw A year later he was put on a transport train to Treblinka with his mother and sister Separated on the train he never saw them again After six weeks he escaped from Treblinka and returned to the Luk w Ghetto When the Germans emptied the Ghetto he found himself back on a train to Treblinka Knowing where he was going he jumped off the train My father survived by joining the partisan underground and hiding in the woods He was liberated in 1944 After the war he went to Berlin Germany and then to a displaced person DP camp in Eschwege Germany With around 3000 Jewish DPs Eschwege constituted one of the biggest Jewish DP communities in Germany While at the camp he received an education in electronics from ORT He completed his education just prior to Eschwege closing in April of 1949 Anxious to leave Germany he went to Landsberg Germany Jewish Center another DP camp to find passage to America It was at Landsberg that he met a young woman my mom and fell in love Bluma Bojman Polonski My mother Bluma was born on March 10th 1930 in the small rural Jewish town of Wolan w Poland She lived in a large home with her parents Rose and Morris Bojman along with her two sisters Mania and Rachel and three younger brothers The orthodox Jewish family was considered well off Soon things changed In 1939 Germans invaded Poland and the first anti Jewish decrees were issued Displaced people were living with the Bojman family in their home Bluma was 10 years old when she was separated from her family Bluma s mother fled to a nearby town with one of her sons where she thought she would be safe they ended up being sent to Treblinka where they perished The rest of the family was soon sent to a holding camp where they awaited being sent to Auschwitz Bluma survived in concentration camps from 1940 until 1945 She had to learn to survive like an animal was weak and thin from starvation and she had no hair Shortly before her liberation from Auschwitz Bluma was placed in a selection line Josef Mengele known by many as the Angel of Death choking her with his cane pulled her towards the death line Bluma thinking only of survival gave an incorrect ID number tattooed on her arm to the guards and was able to mix herself back in to the line work line saving herself from certain death Bluma was liberated on May 8th 1945 and taken to the Red Cross then to a home where she could get her strength back She then went to the Landsberg immigration center near Munich It was there that she met my father Josef Polonski She also met up with her sister and her future brother in law
In 1949 my mother and father came to the U S by boat My mother came to Omaha Nebraska where she was sponsored by the Red Cross and the Jewish Community My father first went to New York where he had an Aunt and Uncle as sponsors before coming to Omaha On January 8th 1950 they were married at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha Nebraska AK SAR BEN When my father came to the United States it took him a very short time to learn English He worked for a TV service shop using the skills he learned from ORT and then decided to open up his own TV service called AK SAR BEN Nebraska spelled backwards in 1954 He later expanded into the real estate business and took great pride in managing his stock portfolio My father was thankful he could start a new life in the United States and build his own business As he said I am happy I had the opportunity to come to this country to be free from persecution not having to be afraid for our lives It s a wonderful opportunity to do whatever as a free man I am grateful for the American people My mother and father lived a wonderful life in the United States My mother says I learned to stand on my own two feet not to cry anymore and to be brave My parents had four children 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren Before his passing in 2013 my father was well known for his warm smile kind heart and exceptionally dark tan He did not allow the Holocaust to embitter him Rather he chose to always look forward and never lose hope Bluma is the last survivor of the family recently celebrating her 88th birthday in 2018 at her home in Scottsdale Arizona surrounded by family
In 1949 my mother and father came to the U S by boat My mother came to Omaha Nebraska where she was sponsored by the Red Cross and the Jewish Community My father first went to New York where he had an Aunt and Uncle as sponsors before coming to Omaha On January 8th 1950 they were married at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha Nebraska AK SAR BEN When my father came to the United States it took him a very short time to learn English He worked for a TV service shop using the skills he learned from ORT and then decided to open up his own TV service called AK SAR BEN Nebraska spelled backwards in 1954 He later expanded into the real estate business and took great pride in managing his stock portfolio My father was thankful he could start a new life in the United States and build his own business As he said I am happy I had the opportunity to come to this country to be free from persecution not having to be afraid for our lives It s a wonderful opportunity to do whatever as a free man I am grateful for the American people My mother and father lived a wonderful life in the United States My mother says I learned to stand on my own two feet not to cry anymore and to be brave My parents had four children 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren Before his passing in 2013 my father was well known for his warm smile kind heart and exceptionally dark tan He did not allow the Holocaust to embitter him Rather he chose to always look forward and never lose hope Bluma is the last survivor of the family recently celebrating her 88th birthday in 2018 at her home in Scottsdale Arizona surrounded by family
Survivor Names Clara Notovitz Submitted By Joe Notovitz Club Chai Riders MC New York Clara Notovitz Klara Elefant was born November 20 1928 in Nagyvarod Transylvania She grew up in Siget Romania and once the Nazis occupied the country she and her parents and siblings were forced into the ghettos before being transferred to Auschwitz in cattle train cars Following Auschwitz she was transferred to the Flossenb rg Concentration Camp on October 18 1944 to begin work As Prisoner 55816 she worked in the Siemens Schukert factory On March 4 1945 she was transferred to Mehlteuer Concentration Camp Among the many times my mother came close to losing her life one story has stood out in my memories Sister Grace was an SS officer who was overly cruel and sadistic She whipped beat and killed prisoners on a regular basis In 1945 my mother then 17 ran out of the camp through an open gate Grace started chasing her In a matter of minutes she caught up to my mother grabbed and tackled her to the ground Klara knew her life was about to come to a painful end But miraculously the SS guard spoke to her in a soft voice In a day or so the Americans will arrive here and free you I won t kill you now because I want you to tell the soldiers that I was merciful and a good person Of Klara s three siblings parents and grandparents only she and her two sisters survived and ultimately came to settle in the United States As of April 1 2018 and after her two sisters Lili and Susan have passed away Clara Notovitz is the only remaining survivor She has two children and five grandchildren
Survivor Names Clara Notovitz Submitted By Joe Notovitz Club Chai Riders MC New York Clara Notovitz Klara Elefant was born November 20 1928 in Nagyvarod Transylvania She grew up in Siget Romania and once the Nazis occupied the country she and her parents and siblings were forced into the ghettos before being transferred to Auschwitz in cattle train cars Following Auschwitz she was transferred to the Flossenb rg Concentration Camp on October 18 1944 to begin work As Prisoner 55816 she worked in the Siemens Schukert factory On March 4 1945 she was transferred to Mehlteuer Concentration Camp Among the many times my mother came close to losing her life one story has stood out in my memories Sister Grace was an SS officer who was overly cruel and sadistic She whipped beat and killed prisoners on a regular basis In 1945 my mother then 17 ran out of the camp through an open gate Grace started chasing her In a matter of minutes she caught up to my mother grabbed and tackled her to the ground Klara knew her life was about to come to a painful end But miraculously the SS guard spoke to her in a soft voice In a day or so the Americans will arrive here and free you I won t kill you now because I want you to tell the soldiers that I was merciful and a good person Of Klara s three siblings parents and grandparents only she and her two sisters survived and ultimately came to settle in the United States As of April 1 2018 and after her two sisters Lili and Susan have passed away Clara Notovitz is the only remaining survivor She has two children and five grandchildren
Survivor Name Max Pajewski Submitted By Helen Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Max Pajewski was born in Slonim Poland on August 5 1917 When the Germans invaded in 1939 the borders changed and Slonim became part of the communist Soviet Union which now is Belarus Out of 25 000 Jews who lived there only 100 survived and my father and his two cousins Mina and Max were among those who survived His cousin Mina joined the Partisans His cousin Max same name was in Medical school in Switzerland and later met up with my father His cousin Max later married Mitka Rosen who along with her mother were Schindler Jews and eventually ended up in Israel Being now part of the Soviet Union and Communist my father was ordered by the Soviet government to go and work as a teacher in a town that was 150 miles away He was forced to live in a barn with many other Jews in terrible conditions My father realized that the only way to get out of this situation was to join the Soviet Army and fight against the Nazi s He was allowed one train ride back to see his family His father Motel brothers Leo and Jakob and sister Esther his mother Rifka was sick and stayed at home met him at the train station to say goodbye They thought my dad was crazy and could get himself killed Little did they know that they would all be murdered In June 1941 when war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union Slonim now was under the control of the Nazis My father s mother was shot and killed in front of her house My father s two brothers Leo and Jakob and father were killed July 17 1941 when the Nazi Einsatzgruppen rounded up the youngest and strongest men and murdered them on the outskirts of the city in the forest in graves that they all had dug The remainder of his family were sent to the Ghetto which was eventually burned to the ground by the Nazi s on June 29 1942 Any survivors who tried to escape were shot and killed My father was sent to Siberia because the Soviets did not trust a Polish Jew in the army After the war my father returned to his town and saw his house destroyed He sat on the porch and pondered about killing himself My father and his cousin Max found each other while looking for family survivors in Slonim In 1946 my father and his cousin Max traveled by foot and train to reach Italy a country that was allowing Jewish refugees in There in Rome he married my mother Maria Vergati an Italian who had the Nazis take over her family home in Grottaferrata and a grandmother who was killed when a bomb landed on her in Frascati I was later born in 1950 in Grottaferrata In 1951 Italy had the refugees leave and the three of us were sent to a German DP camp in Bremen From there my father was told we would be coming to New York aboard the American army ship the US General Taylor We ended up in Detroit where my brother Morris was born As far back as I can remember my father would tell me all about his life growing up in Slonim He felt a terrible guilt that he survived and his family perished He inspired me to continue to keep learning and teaching others about the atrocities of the Holocaust so they may never be repeated I became a docent for many years at the Detroit Holocaust Center which made my father proud I know that my Dad s brightest and happiest moments were my brother and I getting married and giving him four precious grandchildren That is when he was the happiest
Survivor Name Max Pajewski Submitted By Helen Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Max Pajewski was born in Slonim Poland on August 5 1917 When the Germans invaded in 1939 the borders changed and Slonim became part of the communist Soviet Union which now is Belarus Out of 25 000 Jews who lived there only 100 survived and my father and his two cousins Mina and Max were among those who survived His cousin Mina joined the Partisans His cousin Max same name was in Medical school in Switzerland and later met up with my father His cousin Max later married Mitka Rosen who along with her mother were Schindler Jews and eventually ended up in Israel Being now part of the Soviet Union and Communist my father was ordered by the Soviet government to go and work as a teacher in a town that was 150 miles away He was forced to live in a barn with many other Jews in terrible conditions My father realized that the only way to get out of this situation was to join the Soviet Army and fight against the Nazi s He was allowed one train ride back to see his family His father Motel brothers Leo and Jakob and sister Esther his mother Rifka was sick and stayed at home met him at the train station to say goodbye They thought my dad was crazy and could get himself killed Little did they know that they would all be murdered In June 1941 when war broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union Slonim now was under the control of the Nazis My father s mother was shot and killed in front of her house My father s two brothers Leo and Jakob and father were killed July 17 1941 when the Nazi Einsatzgruppen rounded up the youngest and strongest men and murdered them on the outskirts of the city in the forest in graves that they all had dug The remainder of his family were sent to the Ghetto which was eventually burned to the ground by the Nazi s on June 29 1942 Any survivors who tried to escape were shot and killed My father was sent to Siberia because the Soviets did not trust a Polish Jew in the army After the war my father returned to his town and saw his house destroyed He sat on the porch and pondered about killing himself My father and his cousin Max found each other while looking for family survivors in Slonim In 1946 my father and his cousin Max traveled by foot and train to reach Italy a country that was allowing Jewish refugees in There in Rome he married my mother Maria Vergati an Italian who had the Nazis take over her family home in Grottaferrata and a grandmother who was killed when a bomb landed on her in Frascati I was later born in 1950 in Grottaferrata In 1951 Italy had the refugees leave and the three of us were sent to a German DP camp in Bremen From there my father was told we would be coming to New York aboard the American army ship the US General Taylor We ended up in Detroit where my brother Morris was born As far back as I can remember my father would tell me all about his life growing up in Slonim He felt a terrible guilt that he survived and his family perished He inspired me to continue to keep learning and teaching others about the atrocities of the Holocaust so they may never be repeated I became a docent for many years at the Detroit Holocaust Center which made my father proud I know that my Dad s brightest and happiest moments were my brother and I getting married and giving him four precious grandchildren That is when he was the happiest
Survivor Name Helmut Anspach Submitted By Jeffrey Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Helmut Anspach was born March 6 1910 in Schorndorf Germany His father passed away when he was 14 years old and Helmut was obligated to run the Family Department Store with his mother Being in Germany during the rise of Hitler was frightening for his family The Anspachs were the only Jewish family in town and had to travel a distance just to go to Synagogue At some point during Adolf Hitler s rise to Power in 1933 my father attended a speech given by Hitler He recalled how Hitler s eyes followed him where ever he was in the room He could not believe the things that Hitler was saying about Jews and that the Germans were believing him Seeing firsthand what was happening in Germany and to the Jews with the advent of the Nazi Party he had the insight that made him come up with a plan for his family and himself to escape On the first of April 1933 members of the SA stood in front of the Anspach family business and threatened people with concentration internment if they did not comply with the Nazi boycott Kurt Anspach left Schorndorf in 1933 because he had lost his job at the bank for being Jewish Helmut had a cousin who was an attorney in Detroit Michigan and hoped he could help get him to the United States I have all the correspondence between them and how it all was able to take place during these dire times Coming to the United States and getting a visa was very difficult for Jews and it was also necessary to have a sponsor in the United States who would financially vouch for them My father s cousin in Detroit was a real hero and through blood sweat and tears was able to provide the proper documents to the government Because of his hard work in 1937 my father and his aunt were granted visas to enable them to leave Hitler s Nazi Germany Later with the help of our cousin my father was fortunate enough to bring his sister brother who came on the same ship as Albert Einstein mother and a cousin After that the United States government indicated that as a result of our cousin issuing too many affidavits no more family members would be granted entry into the United States Most of his other relatives were later murdered by the Nazis One cousin Kurt Levy made it to Nova Scotia Canada and when Canadian customs boarded the ship and saw that he had too much luggage thinking he was trying to emigrate to Canada they refused to let him off the ship which went back to Germany From there he tried to escape the Nazis and went to Holland but in 1942 the Nazis deported him back and he was murdered at Sobibor Concentration Camp Helmut s other cousin Julius Neuberger was killed at Riga and Greta Neuberger was killed at Stutthof Included here is a picture of my grandmother s German passport that allowed her to leave Germany and never return She was the last one out The J indicated that she was a Jew Also the middle name of Sara was given to all Jewish women to indicate that they were Jewish The picture of a plaque is placed in front of my family s department store and home in Schorndorf which still exists today Translated to English it says This Building was located from 1908 to October 1936 the house of the Jewish Family Anspach that were persecuted by the Nazis Kurt Helmut Lore and Selma Anspach had to emigrate to the United States of America to save their lives The other picture is of my father and father in law Max Pajewski also a Holocaust survivor taken in 2002 on our Motorcycles
Survivor Name Helmut Anspach Submitted By Jeffrey Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Helmut Anspach was born March 6 1910 in Schorndorf Germany His father passed away when he was 14 years old and Helmut was obligated to run the Family Department Store with his mother Being in Germany during the rise of Hitler was frightening for his family The Anspachs were the only Jewish family in town and had to travel a distance just to go to Synagogue At some point during Adolf Hitler s rise to Power in 1933 my father attended a speech given by Hitler He recalled how Hitler s eyes followed him where ever he was in the room He could not believe the things that Hitler was saying about Jews and that the Germans were believing him Seeing firsthand what was happening in Germany and to the Jews with the advent of the Nazi Party he had the insight that made him come up with a plan for his family and himself to escape On the first of April 1933 members of the SA stood in front of the Anspach family business and threatened people with concentration internment if they did not comply with the Nazi boycott Kurt Anspach left Schorndorf in 1933 because he had lost his job at the bank for being Jewish Helmut had a cousin who was an attorney in Detroit Michigan and hoped he could help get him to the United States I have all the correspondence between them and how it all was able to take place during these dire times Coming to the United States and getting a visa was very difficult for Jews and it was also necessary to have a sponsor in the United States who would financially vouch for them My father s cousin in Detroit was a real hero and through blood sweat and tears was able to provide the proper documents to the government Because of his hard work in 1937 my father and his aunt were granted visas to enable them to leave Hitler s Nazi Germany Later with the help of our cousin my father was fortunate enough to bring his sister brother who came on the same ship as Albert Einstein mother and a cousin After that the United States government indicated that as a result of our cousin issuing too many affidavits no more family members would be granted entry into the United States Most of his other relatives were later murdered by the Nazis One cousin Kurt Levy made it to Nova Scotia Canada and when Canadian customs boarded the ship and saw that he had too much luggage thinking he was trying to emigrate to Canada they refused to let him off the ship which went back to Germany From there he tried to escape the Nazis and went to Holland but in 1942 the Nazis deported him back and he was murdered at Sobibor Concentration Camp Helmut s other cousin Julius Neuberger was killed at Riga and Greta Neuberger was killed at Stutthof Included here is a picture of my grandmother s German passport that allowed her to leave Germany and never return She was the last one out The J indicated that she was a Jew Also the middle name of Sara was given to all Jewish women to indicate that they were Jewish The picture of a plaque is placed in front of my family s department store and home in Schorndorf which still exists today Translated to English it says This Building was located from 1908 to October 1936 the house of the Jewish Family Anspach that were persecuted by the Nazis Kurt Helmut Lore and Selma Anspach had to emigrate to the United States of America to save their lives The other picture is of my father and father in law Max Pajewski also a Holocaust survivor taken in 2002 on our Motorcycles
Survivor Name Frieda Anspach Submitted By Jeffrey Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My mother Frieda Anspach see Frank was born in Kirchberg Rhein Hunsruck Germany to Rosa and Leopold Frank on January 31 1912 She had a brother and an older sister Irma My mother and her sister were the only Jewish children in their school When Hitler started coming to power and anti semitism was escalating the Hitler followers would come into the School to throw out the Jews for about an hour each day so the other Children could have a special class called Religion After the Religion class the teacher would have my mother come to the front of the class so the others could make fun of her and spit on her One of the boys in her class then cut off her braids calling her a Dirty Jew Frieda and her sister Irma bought and ran a pensione in Germany The reason for this was that their dreams were to immigrate to Palestine and open a pensione there Since my grandfather fought in WWI for the Germans his family thought that he would be spared from harm My grandparents had relatives in Lima Ohio that were in the finance company business Upon the death of their mother they were inclined to issue an affidavit to one Jewish person in Germany who was experiencing the horrible conditions My Mother was chosen from her family since she was the youngest The plan was to get the family out of Germany starting with the youngest and then the next oldest etc Frieda s sister Irma was the next one out After that unfortunately the remainder of the family was murdered by the Nazis Attached is a copy of Frieda s father s death certificate prepared by the Nazis after his murder in the ghetto Theresienstadt on September 7 1942 What is interesting is that the cause of death noted is Enteritis This was the cause of death on most death certificates of Jews murdered by the Nazis In the mid 1960 s after the International Red Cross figured out what had happened during the Holocaust my mother received a post card indicating that her parents had been killed Once in the United States life was not easy for Frieda as she was a housekeeper maid etc After several years in Lima Ohio she moved to another cousin s home in Detroit Michigan where she met my father Helmut Anspach See 1940 wedding picture Her sister married Jakob Gottschalk whose Cousin Alfred Gottschalk went on to become the Chancellor of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati Los Angeles and Jerusalem To get a feel as to the conditions of early Nazi Germany look at the Shoah Foundation interview of Alfred Gottschalk at http youtu be WQZ53tlhRnc Our Family was very active in efforts that remembered the Holocaust Please see the picture of our cousin Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk President Ronald Regan and Ellie Wiesel who were instrumental in creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Also in the Cemetery at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation our relatives donated a Memorial which is a symbolic resting place for Jews killed in the Holocaust with no graves
Survivor Name Frieda Anspach Submitted By Jeffrey Anspach Club Shul Boys Cleveland My mother Frieda Anspach see Frank was born in Kirchberg Rhein Hunsruck Germany to Rosa and Leopold Frank on January 31 1912 She had a brother and an older sister Irma My mother and her sister were the only Jewish children in their school When Hitler started coming to power and anti semitism was escalating the Hitler followers would come into the School to throw out the Jews for about an hour each day so the other Children could have a special class called Religion After the Religion class the teacher would have my mother come to the front of the class so the others could make fun of her and spit on her One of the boys in her class then cut off her braids calling her a Dirty Jew Frieda and her sister Irma bought and ran a pensione in Germany The reason for this was that their dreams were to immigrate to Palestine and open a pensione there Since my grandfather fought in WWI for the Germans his family thought that he would be spared from harm My grandparents had relatives in Lima Ohio that were in the finance company business Upon the death of their mother they were inclined to issue an affidavit to one Jewish person in Germany who was experiencing the horrible conditions My Mother was chosen from her family since she was the youngest The plan was to get the family out of Germany starting with the youngest and then the next oldest etc Frieda s sister Irma was the next one out After that unfortunately the remainder of the family was murdered by the Nazis Attached is a copy of Frieda s father s death certificate prepared by the Nazis after his murder in the ghetto Theresienstadt on September 7 1942 What is interesting is that the cause of death noted is Enteritis This was the cause of death on most death certificates of Jews murdered by the Nazis In the mid 1960 s after the International Red Cross figured out what had happened during the Holocaust my mother received a post card indicating that her parents had been killed Once in the United States life was not easy for Frieda as she was a housekeeper maid etc After several years in Lima Ohio she moved to another cousin s home in Detroit Michigan where she met my father Helmut Anspach See 1940 wedding picture Her sister married Jakob Gottschalk whose Cousin Alfred Gottschalk went on to become the Chancellor of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati Los Angeles and Jerusalem To get a feel as to the conditions of early Nazi Germany look at the Shoah Foundation interview of Alfred Gottschalk at http youtu be WQZ53tlhRnc Our Family was very active in efforts that remembered the Holocaust Please see the picture of our cousin Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk President Ronald Regan and Ellie Wiesel who were instrumental in creating the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Also in the Cemetery at the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation our relatives donated a Memorial which is a symbolic resting place for Jews killed in the Holocaust with no graves
Survivor Names Bronia Icek Wluka Submitted By David Wluka Club Lonsmen MC New England Icek Wluka In May of 1942 my father Icek Wluka was part of the transport of nearly 4 000 Jews to Auschwitz from his birthtown of Nowy Dwor Maziowecki just outside Warsaw One of eight siblings he was the only survivor In 1945 he was liberated and ended up in the DP camp in Salzburg Austria With a partner I have chronicled his story and our restoration project for the Jewish cemetery that was plundered after the transport The pictures are myself my Lonsmen Wife Nancy and our grandson Zachary at the initial dedication of our work in 2011 You can learn more about our work there our annual tolerance essay competition with the local schools and our annual conference between the children of Nowy Dwor and their counterparts from Gedera Israel at www nowydworjewishmemorial org We have presented at temples Rotary the United States Holocaust Museum and the Polish Embassy in Washington D C I currently lecture on the project annually at Boston University to the incoming Social Studies class
Survivor Names Bronia Icek Wluka Submitted By David Wluka Club Lonsmen MC New England Icek Wluka In May of 1942 my father Icek Wluka was part of the transport of nearly 4 000 Jews to Auschwitz from his birthtown of Nowy Dwor Maziowecki just outside Warsaw One of eight siblings he was the only survivor In 1945 he was liberated and ended up in the DP camp in Salzburg Austria With a partner I have chronicled his story and our restoration project for the Jewish cemetery that was plundered after the transport The pictures are myself my Lonsmen Wife Nancy and our grandson Zachary at the initial dedication of our work in 2011 You can learn more about our work there our annual tolerance essay competition with the local schools and our annual conference between the children of Nowy Dwor and their counterparts from Gedera Israel at www nowydworjewishmemorial org We have presented at temples Rotary the United States Holocaust Museum and the Polish Embassy in Washington D C I currently lecture on the project annually at Boston University to the incoming Social Studies class
Bronia Wluka My mother is another story She lived in the small town of Pabrade just north of Vilnius in Lithuania on what was then the border of Belarus In 1942 when she was 12 she was playing at a Gentile girlfriend s house on the farm next door While there the Nazis came and took her mother father and sister She never saw them again The family kept her as their other daughter For three years she went to church learned catechism and served meals to the German soldiers who were camped on the farm When the war ended in 1945 the family wanted to adopt her Now 15 she told them that she wanted to find family and heard that some of them might be in the Displaced Persons camp in Salzburg Austria She traveled that distance some 900 miles on her own At the DP camp she found family and my father They were both orphans and really had no one Three days later they were married She was just 16 She and I are 17 years apart This past January we celebrated her 89th birthday The black and white picture is from Salzburg The one on the bike is around my third birthday We came to Boston as refugees when I was four The picture on my Heritage was four years ago on her 85th birthday She is still going strong and I hope to have her on a bike on her 90th
Bronia Wluka My mother is another story She lived in the small town of Pabrade just north of Vilnius in Lithuania on what was then the border of Belarus In 1942 when she was 12 she was playing at a Gentile girlfriend s house on the farm next door While there the Nazis came and took her mother father and sister She never saw them again The family kept her as their other daughter For three years she went to church learned catechism and served meals to the German soldiers who were camped on the farm When the war ended in 1945 the family wanted to adopt her Now 15 she told them that she wanted to find family and heard that some of them might be in the Displaced Persons camp in Salzburg Austria She traveled that distance some 900 miles on her own At the DP camp she found family and my father They were both orphans and really had no one Three days later they were married She was just 16 She and I are 17 years apart This past January we celebrated her 89th birthday The black and white picture is from Salzburg The one on the bike is around my third birthday We came to Boston as refugees when I was four The picture on my Heritage was four years ago on her 85th birthday She is still going strong and I hope to have her on a bike on her 90th
Survivor Name Georg Kollman Submitted By Barbara Miller Club Shul Boys Cleveland On November 5 2000 in central Helsinki s T htitorninmaki Park Finnish President Paavo Lipponen unveiled two large memorial stones and issued an official apology for his country s 1942 deportation of eight Jews to the Gestapo For Janka and her husband Georg Kollman and their infant son Franz Olof the regrets came fifty eight years too late On November 3 1942 the Kollman family and five other Jews were deported to German custody and ultimately to Auschwitz It was there on February 20 1943 that Janka and Franz Olof were murdered Georg survived and after the war built a new life in Israel I Barbara Miller tell this story because Janka was my mothers first cousin Like millions of other Jews murdered by the Germans the story of Janka and Franz Olof began in one place and ends in another Janka was born on 10 September 1910 in Ny regyh za Hungary the third of four children With an excellent mind and a refusal to accept any limitations in 1934 she entered the renowned Medical University of Vienna But during her fourth year 1938 Hitler s Anschluss brought the Wehrmacht into Austria and the annexation of that country to Germany Official anti Semitism began immediately By May 1938 Nazi rule had forced Jewish teachers and students to leave schools thus robbing Janka of her degree During that same year Janka and Georg Kollman another Jewish medical student fled Vienna for Finland With Austrian passports no visa was required to enter the country and Finland seemed far removed from European anti Semitism And others hoped for a secure Finnish residence In the summer of 1938 some 500 Romanian German Austrian and Polish Jews had fled to Finland Things seemed hopeful Local Jewish congregations raised funds for refugee support and Finnish Jews housed many arrivals The Kollman s lives reflected this new sense of security Georg continued his residency in Finland married Janka and in 1942 Franz Olof was born But the tragic march of events moved faster than any refugees flight Barely three months after the 1939 August Hitler Stalin Pact the Soviets now unleashed in the east began the Winter War by invading Finland Although officially neutral Hitler facilitated arms exports to Finland When Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941 Finland used the opportunity to reclaim lands lost to Russian during the Winter War In fact after June 1941 Hitler considered the Finns as part of his overall invasion force and Stalin included Finland among its enemies For Finnish Jews the deepening ties between Finland and Germany threatened disaster In waging his war against the Jews Hitler through his SS had pressed his allies to surrender their Jews Finland s turn came in April 1942 That month Finish Security Police chief Arno Anthoni met in Berlin with SS Gruppenf hrer Henrich M ller Anthoni a notorious anti Semite and Nazi sympathizer had little hesitation in agreeing to the SS demands He handed Mueller a list of Finnish Jews and agree to deliver them to the Nazis That October Anthoni initiated a campaign of anti Semitism by accusing Jewish emigres from Russia and Estonia as being spies or criminals For unclear reasons but with the Finnish government s support the first group of deportees was only eight in number and all were arrested on November 3 1942 On November 5 they were surrendered to German authorities and as prisoners boarded the freighter S S Hohenh rn bound for Estonia and for the Kollman s Auschwitz Janka Kollman May Her Memory Be a Blessing Franz Olof Kollman May His Memory Be a Blessing Georg Kollman who survived the war resumed the practice of medicine and made a new life in Israel
Survivor Name Georg Kollman Submitted By Barbara Miller Club Shul Boys Cleveland On November 5 2000 in central Helsinki s T htitorninmaki Park Finnish President Paavo Lipponen unveiled two large memorial stones and issued an official apology for his country s 1942 deportation of eight Jews to the Gestapo For Janka and her husband Georg Kollman and their infant son Franz Olof the regrets came fifty eight years too late On November 3 1942 the Kollman family and five other Jews were deported to German custody and ultimately to Auschwitz It was there on February 20 1943 that Janka and Franz Olof were murdered Georg survived and after the war built a new life in Israel I Barbara Miller tell this story because Janka was my mothers first cousin Like millions of other Jews murdered by the Germans the story of Janka and Franz Olof began in one place and ends in another Janka was born on 10 September 1910 in Ny regyh za Hungary the third of four children With an excellent mind and a refusal to accept any limitations in 1934 she entered the renowned Medical University of Vienna But during her fourth year 1938 Hitler s Anschluss brought the Wehrmacht into Austria and the annexation of that country to Germany Official anti Semitism began immediately By May 1938 Nazi rule had forced Jewish teachers and students to leave schools thus robbing Janka of her degree During that same year Janka and Georg Kollman another Jewish medical student fled Vienna for Finland With Austrian passports no visa was required to enter the country and Finland seemed far removed from European anti Semitism And others hoped for a secure Finnish residence In the summer of 1938 some 500 Romanian German Austrian and Polish Jews had fled to Finland Things seemed hopeful Local Jewish congregations raised funds for refugee support and Finnish Jews housed many arrivals The Kollman s lives reflected this new sense of security Georg continued his residency in Finland married Janka and in 1942 Franz Olof was born But the tragic march of events moved faster than any refugees flight Barely three months after the 1939 August Hitler Stalin Pact the Soviets now unleashed in the east began the Winter War by invading Finland Although officially neutral Hitler facilitated arms exports to Finland When Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941 Finland used the opportunity to reclaim lands lost to Russian during the Winter War In fact after June 1941 Hitler considered the Finns as part of his overall invasion force and Stalin included Finland among its enemies For Finnish Jews the deepening ties between Finland and Germany threatened disaster In waging his war against the Jews Hitler through his SS had pressed his allies to surrender their Jews Finland s turn came in April 1942 That month Finish Security Police chief Arno Anthoni met in Berlin with SS Gruppenf hrer Henrich M ller Anthoni a notorious anti Semite and Nazi sympathizer had little hesitation in agreeing to the SS demands He handed Mueller a list of Finnish Jews and agree to deliver them to the Nazis That October Anthoni initiated a campaign of anti Semitism by accusing Jewish emigres from Russia and Estonia as being spies or criminals For unclear reasons but with the Finnish government s support the first group of deportees was only eight in number and all were arrested on November 3 1942 On November 5 they were surrendered to German authorities and as prisoners boarded the freighter S S Hohenh rn bound for Estonia and for the Kollman s Auschwitz Janka Kollman May Her Memory Be a Blessing Franz Olof Kollman May His Memory Be a Blessing Georg Kollman who survived the war resumed the practice of medicine and made a new life in Israel
Survivor Name Siegbert Siggi Wilzig Submitted By Alan Wilzig Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Siegbert Siggi B Wilzig was born March 11 1926 in Kronjanke West Prussia In 1943 at age 16 he was sent to Auschwitz and tattooed with the number 104732 along with a triangle denoting his nationality Within days of being sent to Auschwitz his brother was beaten to death his mother was murdered and his father was killed in front of him on April 8 1943 as Siggi remembered In all 59 members of his family were killed over a three year period including two who were killed two days before the liberation of Auschwitz All 1500 of his Jewish grade school classmates also perished at the hands of the Nazis As Siggi was quoted as saying I remember every single day I was there He remembered particularly that they took blood from the Jews to give it to wounded soldiers on the Russian front In January 1945 Siggi left Auschwitz on a forced death march He made it to Mauthausen On May 8 1945 he was rescued from Mauthausen Austria by the U S Army He arrived penniless in New York in 1947 at age 21 after four plus years in forced labor and concentration camps and by dint of his personality and determination become one of the most successful businessmen in post war America Starting as a traveling salesman he invested his savings in stocks including Wilshire Oil Company of Texas a stock holding which would grow to the point where he at age 39 was elected president He later acquired a large holding in Trust Company of New Jersey His successes occurred in oil and commercial banking two virulently anti Semitic industries in the 1950 s and 60 s Survival skills honed in Auschwitz and Mauthausen converted into the drive and cunning needed to build an empire from scratch His credo is carved in marble above a fireplace in one of his offices at the Trust Company bank Free men who forget their bitter past do not deserve a bright future Siggi was along with associate Elie Wiesel one of the founders of the U S Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D C and a frequent lecturer on Holocaust history including the first ever to the cadets at West Point He died of cancer in 2003 leaving behind his wife Naomi his two sons Alan and Ivan and his daughter Sherry Izak His story will be published in spring 2019 by Insight Editions A tower of strength a strong warrior who believed in helping people Humanity needs men like Siggi B Wilzig in order to stay human Hon Frank J Guarini
Survivor Name Siegbert Siggi Wilzig Submitted By Alan Wilzig Club Shul Boys Cleveland My father Siegbert Siggi B Wilzig was born March 11 1926 in Kronjanke West Prussia In 1943 at age 16 he was sent to Auschwitz and tattooed with the number 104732 along with a triangle denoting his nationality Within days of being sent to Auschwitz his brother was beaten to death his mother was murdered and his father was killed in front of him on April 8 1943 as Siggi remembered In all 59 members of his family were killed over a three year period including two who were killed two days before the liberation of Auschwitz All 1500 of his Jewish grade school classmates also perished at the hands of the Nazis As Siggi was quoted as saying I remember every single day I was there He remembered particularly that they took blood from the Jews to give it to wounded soldiers on the Russian front In January 1945 Siggi left Auschwitz on a forced death march He made it to Mauthausen On May 8 1945 he was rescued from Mauthausen Austria by the U S Army He arrived penniless in New York in 1947 at age 21 after four plus years in forced labor and concentration camps and by dint of his personality and determination become one of the most successful businessmen in post war America Starting as a traveling salesman he invested his savings in stocks including Wilshire Oil Company of Texas a stock holding which would grow to the point where he at age 39 was elected president He later acquired a large holding in Trust Company of New Jersey His successes occurred in oil and commercial banking two virulently anti Semitic industries in the 1950 s and 60 s Survival skills honed in Auschwitz and Mauthausen converted into the drive and cunning needed to build an empire from scratch His credo is carved in marble above a fireplace in one of his offices at the Trust Company bank Free men who forget their bitter past do not deserve a bright future Siggi was along with associate Elie Wiesel one of the founders of the U S Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D C and a frequent lecturer on Holocaust history including the first ever to the cadets at West Point He died of cancer in 2003 leaving behind his wife Naomi his two sons Alan and Ivan and his daughter Sherry Izak His story will be published in spring 2019 by Insight Editions A tower of strength a strong warrior who believed in helping people Humanity needs men like Siggi B Wilzig in order to stay human Hon Frank J Guarini
Survivor Name Antonia Tonka Blimbaum Submitted By Gordon Blimbaum Club Shul Boys Cleveland Antonia Tonka Blimbaum my mother was born April 1 1923 in Lvov Poland which is now the Ukraine She lived in Lvov with her parents Chaim and Malka who are pictured along with three brothers and two sisters They owned a beautiful home in the suburbs with eight apartments they rented out fruit orchards prize chickens geese and horses One Erev Pesach shortly before WWII her parents were taken away by German soldiers never to return A few weeks later Tonka age 14 along with her brothers and sisters and Tonka were spilt up and to be sent to work camps Tonka was with her older sister Rosalia Wanda who was the oldest They were taken in cattle cars transported naked to lessen their desire to escape and told they were being taken for showers There was a German soldier in each car with a machine gun Together the prisoners realized they were going to be killed so they ambushed the soldier Tonka took a bullet in her collar bone but still managed to jump from the train Unfortunately Tonka lost contact with her sister Wanda at this point After her escape Tonka hid and roamed the woods of Germany Residents from small villages gave her and her small band of escapees a little food and clothing Mostly they ate berries and roots for a year or two My mother conceived my 1 2 brother while hiding in the woods After the war she somehow made it back to her childhood home There a women opened the door and told her to go away or she would call the police and have her arrested Tonka was in terrible physical condition holding a newborn child with lice in her hair and severely malnourished Before she left the women told her of another lady who came by that looked similar to her Tonka eventually found one brother and her sister Wanda Wanda nursed Tonka back to health Upon arriving by boat to NYC after the war Tonka lived in Toronto Ontario Canada and then finally Cleveland Ohio She became a restaurant owner with my father also a survivor and then cooked for Corky Lenny s famous Jewish delicatessen for 35 years She then became a private cook for a few families in Cleveland and became well known for her ethnic European specialties Tonka resides in Cleveland and just celebrated her 95th birthday with family on April 1 2018
Survivor Name Antonia Tonka Blimbaum Submitted By Gordon Blimbaum Club Shul Boys Cleveland Antonia Tonka Blimbaum my mother was born April 1 1923 in Lvov Poland which is now the Ukraine She lived in Lvov with her parents Chaim and Malka who are pictured along with three brothers and two sisters They owned a beautiful home in the suburbs with eight apartments they rented out fruit orchards prize chickens geese and horses One Erev Pesach shortly before WWII her parents were taken away by German soldiers never to return A few weeks later Tonka age 14 along with her brothers and sisters and Tonka were spilt up and to be sent to work camps Tonka was with her older sister Rosalia Wanda who was the oldest They were taken in cattle cars transported naked to lessen their desire to escape and told they were being taken for showers There was a German soldier in each car with a machine gun Together the prisoners realized they were going to be killed so they ambushed the soldier Tonka took a bullet in her collar bone but still managed to jump from the train Unfortunately Tonka lost contact with her sister Wanda at this point After her escape Tonka hid and roamed the woods of Germany Residents from small villages gave her and her small band of escapees a little food and clothing Mostly they ate berries and roots for a year or two My mother conceived my 1 2 brother while hiding in the woods After the war she somehow made it back to her childhood home There a women opened the door and told her to go away or she would call the police and have her arrested Tonka was in terrible physical condition holding a newborn child with lice in her hair and severely malnourished Before she left the women told her of another lady who came by that looked similar to her Tonka eventually found one brother and her sister Wanda Wanda nursed Tonka back to health Upon arriving by boat to NYC after the war Tonka lived in Toronto Ontario Canada and then finally Cleveland Ohio She became a restaurant owner with my father also a survivor and then cooked for Corky Lenny s famous Jewish delicatessen for 35 years She then became a private cook for a few families in Cleveland and became well known for her ethnic European specialties Tonka resides in Cleveland and just celebrated her 95th birthday with family on April 1 2018
Free men who forget their bitter past do not deserve a bright future Siegbert Siggi Wilzig Shul Boys Cleveland Holocaust Survivor
Free men who forget their bitter past do not deserve a bright future Siegbert Siggi Wilzig Shul Boys Cleveland Holocaust Survivor
We ride to remember so the world will never forget
We ride to remember so the world will never forget
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