C ommunity / deaths
DEATH NOTICES
SZATMARY Shirley Szatmary (nee Dorfman) passed away
on September 15, 2020. Beloved wife of the
late Albert A. Szatmary. Mother of Susan,
Marcia (Stan Gitler), and the late Warren.

Grandmother of Allison Lebed (Brett) and Mi-
chael A. Morris. Great grandmother of Ma-
son and Jessa. Aunt to many loving nieces
and nephews. Sister of the late Philip, Kitty,
Herbert, Faye, Morty and Irving. Shirley was
the youngest of 7 children, born on July 12,
1920 in Philadelphia to Ida and Samuel Dorf-
man. Her parents were Polish immigrants
who owned a bakery on 4th Street, home to
many Jewish merchants. The family lived
above the store, and their lives were woven
into the fabric of the community. When she
was a teenager, she met Albert at Heinz’s Pier
on the Atlantic City boardwalk, and the shore
was always an important part of their lives.

Shirley led a full and active life, having
reached her milestone 100th birthday just 2
months before her death. Widowed for many
years, she was a self-reliant and independent
woman. She loved to travel, relax on the
Cambridge Ave. beach in Ventnor, and ride
her bike on the boardwalk well into her late
80s – easily recognized by her upright pos-
ture, always attired in color-coordinated out-
fits and hats. Due to the pandemic, graveside
services were private.

WAXMAN Naomi Waxman (nee Kaplan), on November
16, 2020. Wife of the late Edward Waxman.

Mother of Hon. Brad K. (Laurie Gottlieb)
Moss, Dr. Marc (Heather) Moss, Marsha
(Mark) Bookman, and Sally (Aron Golberg)
Waxman. Grandmother of Andrew, Parker,
Joshua and Dylan Moss, Andrea Short, Mat-
thew Bookman and Stephanie Larsen. Sister
of Dr. Michael Kay. Cousin, aunt, great-
grandmother and friend to many. Graveside
services were private. Contributions in her
memory may be made to a charity of the
donor’s choice.

JOSEPH LEVINE and SONS
www.levinefuneral.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
FLEISHMAN It is so difficult to write about my two won-
derful sons that I lost. I appreciate all the
support from my family and friends that have
helped me cope during this time. Thank you
again! All my love,
Dolly & Family
God Bless
Honor the
memory of your
loved one …
CALL 215-832-0749
TO PLACE YOUR
YAHRTZEIT AD.

classified@ jewishexponent.com
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Reunion
Continued from Page 9
in his voice makes him sound
like a teenager.”
Ira and Ruth share similar
stories. Both were born in
Poland in 1936: he in Sarny,
she in Ciechanów.

The area Ira lived in came
under Russian occupation
at the start of World War II.

When the Nazis began their
attack on Russia in 1941, Ira’s
father put him and his wife
on a train headed east. Ira
never saw his father again and
believes he was killed in the
Battle of Stalingrad. Ira and his
mother wound up in the Ural
Mountains. She worked in a
Russian labor camp.

His mother was paid in
scraps of food. In an interview
with The Observer, he remem-
bered his mother would return
from labor with icicles on her
eyelashes. A piece of cheese or
a rat was a feast.

“My mother kept saying
in the Ural Mountains, ‘It’s a
good thing you’re my only
child, because had I had two, we
probably all would have died,’”
Ira shared on the Zoom reunion.

After the war, they left the
Urals and returned to Sarny
after four months of walking
and trying to catch rides.

“We finally got to Sarny and
Sarny was totally demolished.

The house we had was gone.

Everything was just ruins.”
From there, Ira and his
mother crossed four borders as
they walked to Austria. They
arrived six months later, in
1946. In the DP camp, Ira’s
mother remarried a man who
had fought with the Russian
partisans; he had lost his wife
and two children.

Ruth’s family fled when
the Nazis arrived in their
hometown in 1939. She was 2½.

“My uncle had a big truck,”
she said. “He came to my Mom
and he says, ‘Take the child
and take whatever you need
and whatever you want and
get on the truck because the
Germans are right behind us.’”
During the day, Ruth said,
they hid in forests. By night,
the uncle drove until they
arrived in Ukraine.

“Over there we didn’t stay
too long (until 1941), and they
sent us to Siberia,” Ruth said.

“My parents they sent out to
dig ditches and I stayed home,
almost 3 years old by myself.”
Both families arrived at the
Hallein DP camp in 1946. On
the Zoom reunion, Ruth and
Ira shared pictures from their
years together at Hallein.

“That was Purim,” Ira said
of a photo marked 1950, with
arrows pointing to them. “You
were Esther, and I was the king,
Ahashverus.” “When we got to camp, to
Hallein, that was already a
good life compared to what
we went through before,” Ruth
said. “We didn’t know any
better and we were happy.”
Ira agreed.

“This was healing, and the
people there really tried to heal
us,” he said. “They tried to do
as much as they could.”
Along with the photos, Ira
shared a memento he’s kept
from the DP camp all these
years: a handkerchief with the
initial R.

“You embroidered that,” Ira
told Ruth.

“I must have given it to
him,” Ruth said, laughing.

“You must have,” Ira said,
“or I stole it! We were pretty
tight there for those times:
running around, doing all
kinds of things together.”
Ira’s and Ruth’s families
were in the Hallein camp after
the war because the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society at first
had difficulty locating their
families in the United States.

Émigrés could only enter the
U.S. with a sponsor.

“The camps were basically set
up by where your destination
would be,” Ira said. “The only
place that would take us without
any questions because we were
Jews, you could come to Israel.

HIAS did find my mother’s two
sisters. My mother always knew
she had two sisters in the United
JEWISH EXPONENT
States. She just didn’t know
where they were, didn’t have an
address. As soon as they found
us, they soon after sent us a visa.

“And we thought we were
going to the United States
the next week or next month.

We didn’t realize there was a
waiting line, that the United
States was not admitting too
many people. And so, we
waited five years.”
He and his mother and
stepfather arrived in New York
in 1951, where his aunts lived.

There, his name took on a more
“American” flavor, first as Ike,
then as Izzy, until he finally
settled on Ira.

Ruth’s family made it to
Philadelphia in 1952, where her
mother’s sisters and maternal
grandmother had immigrated
in 1929-’30.

She said her uncle changed
her name to Ruth when he
enrolled her at Girls’ High.

“I wanted to keep Regina,”
she said.

Ruth worked
as a
bookkeeper, married Shloma
“Sol” Brandspiegel in 1957 — a
Holocaust survivor who lived
in the neighborhood — and
they raised their three children
in Northeast Philadelphia
while working in the retail
businesses they owned. Her
husband died two years ago.

After high school, Ira
entered the army and served in
Korea, married Zelda — whose
parents had émigrated from
Poland in the 1920s — worked
in electronics and communi-
cation, with Zelda raised four
boys, and made his career with
ITT, from which he retired in
New Jersey as president of its
job training services division.

Ira and Zelda moved to
Dayton, Ohio, in 2000. Zelda
died in 2010 after 51 years of
marriage. “I really don’t believe I’m
talking to you,” Ruth told Ira on
the Zoom reunion. “Hopefully,
after this virus, you can take a
ride and come and see us.”
“Or maybe you’re going to
take a ride there, Mom,” Larry
said. “My future daughter-in-law
is from Columbus, Ohio,”
Ruth’s younger daughter,
Debbie Marks, added.

“I’ve had tears in my eyes
since we started,” Ira said.

“When he called me, I
almost fainted,” Ruth said.

Ira told Ruth that when he
comes to see her, he’ll bring her
handkerchief. l
Marshall Weiss is the editor and
publisher of the Dayton Jewish
Observer, where a longer version of
this article first appeared.

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