JUNE 24 • 2021 | 21

another for shelter. Though she 
was young, Cohen learned the 
story of her family’s survival 
through their stories and their 
photographs.
Her dad’s skills as a great 
outdoorsman and her moth-
er’s perfect German helped 
the Schechter family survive. 
With the help of friends, they 
were able to escape the ghetto 
in which they lived and hid in 
different properties. To make 
hiding easier, Cohen’s parents 
decided to separate. Cohen 
stayed with her mother, who 
was able to pass for German 
thanks to her blonde hair and 
blue eyes, and the two were 
taken to Durnholz, Germany, 
where they lived under false 
papers.
Cohen’s father remained in 
Poland working as a Polish 
laborer. Cohen’s mother, how-
ever, struggled to work and 
take care of her newborn child, 
but a German woman offered 

to watch the baby while she 
worked. One day, the German 
woman, who grew attached 
to the baby, told her mother 
she could no longer visit. Yet 
Cohen’s mother hatched a plan, 
and on her final visit claimed 
she was going for a walk and 
ran away with her young 
daughter in her arms.
They stayed on the road 
with thousands of other ref-
ugees until they arrived in 
Dresden, which had recently 
been bombed by the allies. 
Luckily, the bombing spared 
them. The Schecters ended up 
in a displaced persons camp in 
Stuttgart where Cohen’s father 
was able to find them through 
the Red Cross.
In 1946, with the help of 
relatives who sponsored the 
family in New Jersey, they were 
able to rebuild their lives in the 
U.S. Cohen graduated from 
the University of Michigan as a 
physical therapist and contin-

ues to educate people about the 
Holocaust. She has traveled to 
Poland and Israel with students 
from Frankel Hebrew Academy 
as a guest survivor.

HENRY WORMSER
Born Henry Claude Wormser 
in Strasbourg, France, in 1936, 
Wormser was a child survivor 
of the war. His father was draft-
ed to fight in the French Army, 
so his mother took care of him. 
One night, they received a 
notice slipped under their door 
in an envelope to report to the 
City Hall with identification 
papers. Refusing to show up 
with a fear of what might hap-
pen next, Wormser’s mother 
went to her brother for help, 
and they escaped via car to the 
town of Sayat.
They were able to find a 
family who would hide them. 
Wormser remembers being 
able to play with the other 
children and roam around, 

except for when Germans came 
by to get provisions. Wormser 
and his family stayed at their 
shelter until France was lib-
erated, when they returned 
to their apartment. Every day 
for six months, Wormser and 
his mother went to the train 
station to look for Wormser’s 
father. Finally, one day, he 
arrived, and the family was 
reunited.
With family in the U.S., the 
Wormsers decided to emigrate 
in June 1953. They first resided 
in different cities along the East 
Coast, where Wormser’s father 
worked for a Jewish hotel and 
in factories. They eventually 
bought a farm in Vineland, 
N.J., where Henry grew up and 
received an education in phar-
macy and medicinal chemistry. 
In 1965, he began teaching at 
Wayne State University and 
raised his family in Metro 
Detroit, often speaking at the 
Holocaust Memorial Center. 

248.289.0660
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