obituaries

Obituaries from page 71

Sally's Story Of Courage And Love

I

David Sachs
Senior Copy Editor

As the book begins, 11-year-old Sally's
innocent life changed forever on Sept. 3,
1939, the third day of World War II, when
or 27-year-old Morton Horwitz,
Nazi German dive-bombers firebombed
his first glimpse of 21-year-old
her hometown of Zwolen, in central
Sally Finkelstein was love at first
Poland. The planes flew so low that Sally
sight.
could see the pilots' eyes as they sprayed
the fleeing civilians with machine-gun fire.
"It was her charisma" he said. "It just
Sally and her family survived the first
shone out of her"
It was 1949. Mort was employed at his
day's onslaught, but they were herded
father's dry goods store in New Haven,
into a ghetto in their village. Two years
Conn., and Sally had just started work-
later, the ghetto was emptied out and its
ing at the kosher bakery next door. The
hundreds of inhabitants sent by cattle
car to extermination camps. Sally never
first night he saw her, Mort offered to
drive her home — and a lifelong romance saw her parents and two younger siblings
began.
again.
Mort proposed two months later. Soon
Fortunately, Sally and her older sister
Franya were singled out for harvesting
afterward, they were wed.
potatoes in nearby Policna, where anoth-
Mort's parents originally had hoped
their son would marry a woman with
er older sister, Manya, had already been
toiling in backbreaking slavery performed
yichis (pedigree or lineage) — not a new
immigrant who had spent her tortured
under starvation conditions. Sally's spirit
teenage years as a slave laborer in Nazi
was defiant, and twice she miraculously
concentration camps.
avoided execution.
"I saw Sally, and I knew she was right
After the harvest season, Sally and
for me" Mort said. "She had some kind
her sisters were transferred to the brutal
of spark. Even though we didn't speak the Skarzysko-Kamiena concentration camp
to work in the munitions factory. Typhus,
same language, there was communica-
starvation and exhaustion nearly claimed
tion.
them.
"I felt I had to go out with her — that I
could never be separated from her:'
In late 1944, as Soviet
Now, 64 years later, Mort has
troops were driving the
said goodbye. Sally
Germans back across
Horwitz,
Poland, Sally and her
86, a resi-
sisters were moved to the
to
dent of West
concentration camp in
as viorsst 'ti
Bloomfield
Czestochowa, Poland,
NtoTtol
the past nine
closer to Germany. It
years, died Feb.
was from there that
18, 2014. Among
their tormentors
Mort and Sally's
finally fled on Jan.
three children is
15, 1945, leaving
Arthur Horwitz, the
the freed Jewish
Detroit Jewish News'
inmates to fend
publisher and execu-
for themselves.
tive editor.
The war over,
Sally made
Years Of Torment
it back to
Two years ago, Sally's
Zwolen, only
husband and her
to find that
Michigan-based grand-
the local Poles
children compiled the
had taken over all
book Sally's Story — her
the Jewish property
Morton and Sally
own account of surviving the
and were killing
Horwitz as pictured on the
Holocaust.
any Jew who came
book cover of Sally's life
In the book, Sally wrote,
back
to claim it.
story.
"Beatings, illness, despair and
She fled her home-
starvation were to be my lot —
town the day before
not to mention the witnessing of shoot-
gunmen came to murder her.
ings and hangings. I light a candle every
Sally's strength of spirit and fearless-
holiday, not just in memory of my own
ness served her well in surviving starva-
family, but also, for an ill-fated generation tion and disease and escaping execution
which was lost to us forever, leaving no
during her six-year ordeal.
descendents to mourn its innocent dead"
Sally reunited with her sisters, and they

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February 27 • 2014

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Obituaries

Sally Horwitz

journeyed hundreds of miles across the
mountains to an American-controlled
displaced persons camp at Bamberg,
Germany, where they felt safe. The U.S.
had restrictive immigration policies at
the time, and it took years of finagling by
relatives of fellow DPs in Connecticut to
get her permission to find sanctuary in
her "New Haven:'

'God Bless America'
A month after arriving, she met her
future husband and began a new life
within the safety and opportunity of
America. A speaker of Yiddish, Polish
and Russian, she went to school to learn
English.
Sally was warmly welcomed by the
Horwitz family and, together with Mort,
made a productive life of parenthood and
of synagogue and community involve-
ment in New Haven.
In 2005, Mort and Sally moved to West
Bloomfield to be closer to son Arthur and
his wife, Gina, whom Sally considered a
daughter. They joined Congregation B'nai
Moshe, where Mort attended minyan
every day, and Mort and Sally walked to
services on Shabbat. Rabbi Elliot Pachter,
who spoke at the memorial service, lov-
ingly referred to Mort as Sally's "best
friend in the world:'
At the memorial service, excerpts
from Sally's life story were read by family
members, including grandsons and wives
Adam and Sheri Horwitz of Ann Arbor
and Rabbi Daniel and Miriam Horwitz
of Washington, D.C. Cantor Earl Berris
of B'nai Moshe sang songs from three
periods of her life: two in Yiddish and the
third, Irving Berlin's "God Bless America"

Legacy Of Courage
Sally's tenacious spirit continues in her
three children, 12 grandchildren and
11 great-grandchildren. Granddaughter
Stephanie Horwitz of Ein Dor, Israel,
unable to attend memorial services
because she is on active duty in the
Israel Defense Forces, wrote a letter that

was read by her brother Adam at their
"Baba's" funeral in New Haven and at the
memorial service at Ira Kaufman Chapel
in Southfield.
"My Baba was full of chutzpah, atti-
tude, spunk and always spoke her mind"
Stephanie wrote. "My Baba was a fighter
and a survivor. Her tenacity and gutsy
ways made her a practically invincible
human being who beat all odds and
knocked down every wall that was
placed in front of her.
"There were countless times where
she looked death straight in the eye and
miraculously came out on top.
"When I think of all of the courageous
actions my Baba took, I always think to
myself, 'How did she do it?' How could
such a young girl be so audacious and
brave? How could a mere teen outsmart
the Nazis at their own game? How could
my Baba Sally continuously put her life
on the line for the sake of others?
"My Baba Sally's mission in life was
clear" Stephanie wrote. "She represented
the triumph of the Jewish people, the
strength of the human spirit and the
power of family"

Bearing Witness
Rabbi Pachter said that despite Sally's
horrendous younger years, she still was
able to love and cherish her new existence
and family.
"The way Sally lived her life can teach
and inspire us today" the rabbi said. "To
ignore the sadness would be unrealistic.
But to not embrace life would be foolish.
And so Sally lived in a near-perfect bal-
ance, never forgetting, but never failing to
embrace life:'
And Sally did not shirk her duty to bear
witness to the evils she endured.
"My mother felt it was her responsibil-
ity to tell others what had happened in
the Holocaust" said Arthur. "She had the
fortitude to do that; she would speak at
the Yale Divinity School.
Also in New Haven, there was a
Catholic school called St. Ann's. Every
year, she would go there and speak to
seventh-graders, roughly the same age my
mother was when the war started. In her
Polish village, Jewish or not, all children
went to the Catholic school.
"The bond that my mother developed
each year with these young girls in New
Haven was unique because she could
relate to them in a way in which they,
themselves, could say, Vow, I can't imag-
ine at my age I would have to deal with
things like that!'
"And my mom would not be able to
sleep for days after speaking about her