Obituaries

Obituaries are updated and archived on thejewishnews.com

Mother Courage

reda Magnus, 93, died June 15,
2010, peacefully in her sleep at
the Fleischman Residence in
West Bloomfield.
Freda was born on March 8, 1917, in
Lodz, Poland, one of five children of Bayla
and Israel Jacov Halpern, a successful
businessman who owned a meat factory
and delicatessen.
When the Germans occupied Lodz,
they came to the Halperns' home and told
them to get dressed and take whatever
they could carry. They were stuffed into a
cattle car with more than 100 others and
taken to Krakow.
Freda, then just 18 years old, found
a way to smuggle herself back to Lodz
in the cold of winter. It took three days.
She convinced a Jewish policeman to let
her into her family's home that had been
sealed up by the Nazis. Somehow she got
back to Krakow and smuggled her par-
ents back with her, paying a man to hide
them in his horse-drawn garbage truck.
While back at home, her mother died of
illness.

Soon, the Nazis returned to take them
away to the concentration camps. She was
in Ravensbruck, Mauthausen, Bergen-
Belsen. Auschwitz and Birkenau where
she saw her father
and younger
brother selected
for the gas cham-
ber. The Nazis
never shaved
her head as they
did with all the
other women. She
credited this for
saving her life. In
Freda Magnus
the camps, she
worked as a seam-
stress and also made shell casings. She
was at the brink of death suffering from
typhus when the British liberated her in
1945. Of her entire family, Freda was the
only survivor.
She was sent to Malmo, Sweden,
where she met Elias Magnus, her future
husband, also a survivor from Lodz.
They started their family all over again

Advocate For Diabetics

C

ynthia Rose Kahn, a medical
librarian of Orlando, Fla., died
June 7, 2010, at age 39.
From a young age, Cynthia displayed a
determined, passionate, tireless attitude
— taking on all challenges. She did this
with a perpetual smile on her face.
Ten years ago, she was diagnosed as a
Brittle Type 1 Diabetic. She was a "brittle"
diabetic, which meant that her blood
sugars were very difficult to control. She
refused to let this infringe on her career or
running and bicycling. Instead, her pas-
sion and determination turned her into an
advocate and warrior for all diabetics.
Working with children with juvenile
diabetes became her great passion. The
Cynthia Kahn Memorial Scholarship
Fund at Extreme Weekend for Children
with Diabetes has been set up (see
address at bottom of story).
Cynthia was a master of social network-
ing: e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, other sites
and phones. She used these skills to create
and join other diabetics and diabetic groups
making hundreds of connections. There she
supported, nurtured, assisted and taught
others. Many have expressed thanks: how
she helped, how her life was an example and
how much she will be missed.

78

June 24 2010

IN

Cynthia's family has been comforted
by the hundreds of Facebook comments,
e-mails, letters, cards and calls. They have
come from throughout the U.S., Europe
and even Australia. Most recount how
she touched their lives. She truly left her
mark on this world.
Cynthia grew up in West
Bloomfield, attending Andover
High School. She later lived
in Ann Arbor; Paris, France;
Washington, D.C.; Portland,
Ore.; and Orlando, Fla. She
received her B.A. in French
and travel and tourism from
Eastern Michigan University
and earned two master
degrees from the University of
Michigan — in Information
and Library Sciences (MILS) and in Public
Health Management and Policy (MPH).
She was a member of the Academy of
Health Care Professionals (AHIP) and was
pursuing a Ph.D. in the history of medicine
at George Washington University in D.C.
Cynthia's interests led her to a career
as a medical librarian, archivist, author,
lecturer, researcher and instructor.
She began first as medical librarian in
Ann Arbor for two years. She was then

Obituaries

with daughters Betty and Nancy. After
10 years, they came to the U.S., first to
Pittsburgh then to Detroit. Elias opened
up a grocery store on Dexter, and Freda
went to Virginia Farrell beauty school.
They soon moved to Oak Park and
became American citizens.
Then, calamity struck
again. On a foggy
morning, on his way
to Detroit's Eastern
Market, Elias' van was
hit by a semi-truck, and
he died at age 44. Freda
was now a single moth-
er with two daughters
to raise. So she picked
up and started again.
She opened "Freda's Beauty Shop," a very
popular beauty salon in the '60s and
'70s, at 10 mile and Coolidge across from
Dexter-Davison market. Freda also took
great pride in her own appearance, always
looking nice and put together. Even into
her 90s as a resident at Fleischman, she
received compliments about how beauti-
ful she was.
Freda also once owned a deli, a piz-
zeria and earned her real estate license.

Though a businesswoman at heart, being
the family matriarch was the most impor-
tant part of her life. She was proud of the
family tree, which she said that Hitler
tried to chop down. But Freda nurtured it
and made it grow again.
Freda was a speaker at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, a
Zionist, a lover of Israel and a devoted
member of Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield. She was honored in Monni
and Sabrina Must's book Living Witnesses
— Faces of the Holocaust. Freda's oral his-
tory can be listened to online at
holocaust.umd.umich.edu/magnus.
Freda Magnus is survived by her
daughters and sons-in-law, Betty and
Larry Steiner and Nancy and Alan
Kwaselow, all of West Bloomfield; grand-
children, Alissa (Eric) Lusky of West
Bloomfield, Benjamin Irwin of La Jolla,
Calif., Amy Irwin of Chicago; great-
grandchildren, Emma and Jonah Lusky.
Interment was at Adat Shalom
Memorial Park. Contributions may be
made to Holocaust Memorial Center, 28123
Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills,
MI 48334 or to a charity of one's choice.
Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel. Li

recruited by the Association of American
Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C., as
manager of the AAMC Reference Center.
She moved to Legacy Health System
in Portland and then back to George
Washington University.
During her time at the Health Science
Library at GW, she acted as a reference
librarian and liaison to the Departments of
Exercise Science, Community
Health, Surgery and Urology.
Additionally, she was an
adjunct professor instructing
first-year medical students in
medical informatics — the
forward-looking intersection
of information science, com-
puter science and health care.
This March, she moved on
to the University of Central
Florida Medical School in
Orlando as head of public
services and director of the Medical
Informatics Department. Nadine Dexter,
director of the library, said Cynthia was
"basically the face of the library" and
"when you're teaching evidenced-based
medicine to answer clinical questions, she
was the go-to person."
Cynthia created a permanent exhibit
on the history of medicine in the U.S. at
the AAMC. She authored a chapter in a
textbook (The Biology of Public Health),

conducted research for several more
books; published more than 20 articles
and lectured at numerous conferences.
Her mother, Rhoda Kahn, a nurse prac-
titioner, recently attended a continuing-
education conference on "Evidence Based
Medicine," presented by Cynthia.
She was an active in every group she
joined including AHIP, Medical Library
Association, Archivists and Librarians in
History of Health Sciences, Washington
Society for History of Medicine and the
Diabetes Exercise and Sports Association.
Cynthia Rose Kahn is survived by her
parents, Ted and Rhoda Kahn of West
Bloomfield; grandfather, Sol Gold of
Keego Harbor; brothers and sisters-in-
law, Jeremy and Elizabeth Kahn of Ft.
Lauderdale, Fla., David and Leonie Kahn
of Baltimore, Daniel Kahn and Janet
Williamson of Royal Oak; many loving
uncles, aunts, cousins and friends.
Cynthia's wish was a cure for diabe-
tes. Contributions may be made to the
Cynthia Kahn Memorial Scholarship
Fund at Extreme Weekend for Children
with Diabetes, 933 Oakmoor Drive,
Halethorpe, MD 21227, or online at:
adventuresforthecure.com/
extremeweekend/
cynthiakahnmemorialfund.html.
Interment at Nusach Hari Cemetery.
Arrangements: Hebrew Memorial Chapel. 11