::-

o

11;b) a ltS

r years later.
To get a better understanding of
the dynamics involved in moving 30
Midwestern Jews to remote parts of
Czechoslovakia, one need only think
how difficult it is to get all the fam-
ily in one place for a Thanksgiving
dinner.
There were commitments needed
and deposits made, health chal-
lenges to overcome, plane connec-
tions to make, and even a bus with
a toilet to find. The family was es-
1,-3rted by the Joint Distribution
-_, Committee through the efforts of
' family member Morry Weiss.
> , "In the back of my mind, I wasn't
sure we were going to pull this off,"
°Ms. Wagner said. "I told the family
that I needed a $200 deposit from
each of them if they were interested
o in going. I wasn't sure what we'd end
up doing. The phone didn't stop ring-
ing. If it's understood how this fam-
o ily had to live and survive and
escape, making a plane connection
no big deal. Life is precious, and
they know it."
. The
. Weiss family — including 11
5iblings — lived in Kanya before the
war. Ms. Wagner's father, Teddy,
the second oldest, had moved to the
United States 10 years earlier. He
tried to convince his family to leave
-,, Europe and come to the United
States, but they refused. Their busi-
`-hess was thriving, and the war
hadn't hit home yet.
Yet.
When the war did make its pres-
ence felt in Czechoslovakia, mem-
bers of the Weiss family were taken
o a holding camp for deportation to
Auschwitz. They were turned over
to the Germans by fellow villagers
in a neighboring town called Rad-
lian.
Some family members were able
to receive falsified records from a

---

1.,

Catholic priest, with the help of the
oldest son Herman, certifying that
the Weiss family had been baptized.
This saved all but two brothers and
a sister, who were transported to
Auschwitz and never heard from
again.
The family fled to Porubka, where
they built what amounted to a large
wooden room with a roof and an out-
house up a steep incline in the
Tatress Mountains. There, the vil-
lagers were friendly, keeping from
the Germans the secret of the Jews'
presence. And it was there the fam-
ily waited out the war.

When the war ended, the family
left Porubka. They would leave
Czechoslovakia after 1948, when the
country became communist. Two un-
cles went to Vienna, two uncles went
to Israel, more relatives came to De-
troit and Windsor.
Jean Weiss, Teddy's wife, had a
&earn of returning to her homeland.
Others in the family wanted to see
the basis for countless stories they
had heard from the older generation.
Reli Gringlas, whose mother died in
the home of a Righteous Gentile, and
who as a child was taken care of by
a villager, wanted to find her moth-

.

Family member Reli Gringlas, whose mother died while the rest of the family hid
on the mountain, meets the woman who took care of her some 50 years ago.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

25