last word
LOOKING AHEAD WITH CENTENARIAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
I zydor Einziger feels like he’s 85.

For perhaps anyone else, that
number would feel a little under-
whelming, concerning even. But to
Einziger, a Holocaust survivor who will
turn 103 on April 17, 85-years-old is
pretty good.

“When I was 85, I was in good shape,”
he said.

To celebrate his longevity, Lions Gate
Life Plan Community in Voorhees, New
Jersey, where Einziger resides, honored
him and 11 other centenarians on April
12 by inducting them into the Lions
Gate 100 Club. The residents, who,
according to Lions Gate, make up 1% of
the state’s centenarians, received special
proclamations — created by New Jersey
General Assembly members Pamela R.

Lampitt and Louis D. Greenwald and
state Sen. James Beach, and presented
by Voorhees Mayor Michael Mignogna.

Ten of the 12 centenarians are Jewish.

“While we recognize all of our resi-
dents as part of our Lions Gate family,
those who have passed the 100-year mark
have such a rich history to share with us.

We are honored to hear and learn from
their life stories,” Lions Gate CEO David
Thompson said in a press release.

Now well into the three digits,
Einziger is less concerned with the type
of birthday cake he’ll be having and
more concerned with today’s political
climate: The war in Ukraine bears an
eerie resemblance to his childhood in
German- and Russian-occupied Poland
on the brink of World War II.

Einziger was born in Mytarka, a small
Polish village in 1919 when the world was
recovering from a different pandemic, the
Spanish Flu. He eventually, after moving
a couple of times as a child, grew up in
German-occupied Krakow, where he was
no stranger to antisemitism.

His family moved to the large city
to accommodate Einziger’s education;
he graduated from gymnasium, simi-
lar to a college preparatory school, in
1937. Though he tried to pursue higher
36 education at a Polish institute, he was
not allowed because he was Jewish,
and instead opted to attend a Jewish
school nearby.

Einziger’s higher education was
short-lived. Two years later, the dawn
of World War II prompted his family
— his mother, father, older sister Renia
Einziger Meir, and husband Beno Meir
and baby — to make plans to flee.

Meir, a lawyer at a large firm, was
fortunate enough to have contacts and a
potential safe house in Soviet-occupied
eastern Poland. The couple and baby
were to leave, but only Einziger’s sister
and baby niece made it to their correct
train. Meir was supposed to join them a
few days later but was waylaid.

“Nothing works according to plans,”
Einziger said.

On Sept. 1, 1939, Einziger awoke to
the sounds of planes flying overheard
and bombs dropping over the city. The
bombings surprised him — he believed
APRIL 14, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
that the U.S. military prowess was
strong enough to quell concerns of war
in Poland.

His parents encouraged him to leave
immediately, while they stayed behind,
too old to travel. Einziger fled with a few
school friends as bombs still dropped on
the city, though returned home 10 days
later, disheveled and tired, after being
captured by Nazi officers and forced to
clean their camp before being let go.

Einziger stayed home for a month, but
his time at home was marked by strife:
His parents had to buy essentials on the
black market; they weren’t allowed to
listen to the radio or television; school
friends began to vanish.

When his family learned that young
Jewish people were being forced into
hard labor, they knew it was time for
Einziger to once again leave home.

Einziger remembered the gravity of
the moment when his parents saw him
off at the train station, where Einziger
fled to eastern Poland.

“The events are dry,” Einziger said.

“The feelings a person goes through —
to look at your parents and feel in your
heart that you might not see them again,
and you go out and you don’t know what
will be — it’s a terrible feeling.”
Einziger’s escape plans were even-
tually foiled again, and he spent years
working odd jobs at a railroad, shov-
eling snow off the tracks; he worked
as a bacterial technician at a polyclinic
in Lvov, thanks to his mother’s cousin,
who was a doctor, but was later deported
to a labor camp in 1941.

Until 1945, he traveled across Russian-
occupied Poland, reuniting with some
family members and separated from
others. Of his time under Russian control,
Einziger offered a grim summary
and potential warning: “Russia never
changes.” In 1946, he returned to Krakow for
the last time, and he learned of the
death of his parents, sister and niece.

He visited the synagogue there, where
the walls of the dilapidated shul were
marked with names and safe house
addresses and pleas of, “Don’t forget us.”
In 1947, Einziger left Poland for Paris,
France, and arrived in America in 1948
on the RMS Queen Mary.

Einziger made his living in the U.S. as
a textile and children’s store owner, but
found his purpose surrounded by family
members; he has a great-granddaughter
who is 3, and his daughter made plans
to fly up from Florida to visit him on his
birthday, despite also having plans to
come and visit in June as well.

Though he attributes his longevity to
good health, exercise and good genes,
Einziger is firm in his belief that he
wouldn’t have survived without the
companionship he had while surviving
WWII. “Be agreeable with other people,”
Einziger said. “Don’t make enemies;
make friends. This is the essence of
life.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Photo by Kris Parsons
Izydor Einziger