SEPTEMBER 1 • 2022 | 55

OBITUARIES
OF BLESSED MEMORY

S

urvivors of the Shoah in Metro 
Detroit are estimated at approx-
imately 450, according to Dr. 
Charles Silow, director of Jewish Senior 
Life’s Program for Holocaust Survivors and 
Families. Among his dwindling cohort, 
Michael Weiss was a standout, noted for 
his dedication to Holocaust education and 
fellow survivors. The strong faith in God 
he carried since boyhood was not shaken 
during his internment in the Auschwitz 
and Buchenwald German concentration 
camps and Zeitz labor camp, or when other 
adversities tested him. He was revered by a 
world of friends and associates.
Michael Weiss, 97, of Oak Park, died 
from COVID complications Aug. 18, 2022. 
The funeral service officiants were Rabbis 
Asher Eisenberger of Congregation Agudas 
Yisrael Mogen Avraham in Southfield and 
Ari Kostelitz of Mr. Weiss’ Congregation 
Dovid Ben Nuchim in Oak Park.
An only child, Michael was born Nov. 
9, 1924, to tailor Adolf “
Avram Yizchok” 
and homemaker Hermina “Chana” 
(Herskovics) Weisz. Miklos was his given 
name. The family lived in Mezokaszony, 
Czechoslovakia, in the Carpathian 
Mountains, near the Hungarian border. 
The village of 2,500 had 90 Chasidic Jewish 
families. Out of his extended family of 51, 
only Mr. Weiss and a couple of cousins sur-
vived the Nazi tragedy. 
After his liberation at Buchenwald at 
age 20, he spent time in Romania and Bad 
Gastein DP camp in Austria. Mr. Weiss 
married Lili, an Auschwitz survivor, in 
1946. Her uncle and aunt in West Virginia 
sponsored them to enter the U.S. But when 
Lili learned her widowed sister, Sarah, was 
living with her son in Detroit, the couple 
moved here, arriving on Jan. 1, 1950. 
Seeking friendships, Mr. Weiss and 
other Shoah survivors from Hungary, 
Czechoslovakia and Romania founded the 
United Jewish Social Club. (UJSC). 
“
All the Hungarian survivors in Detroit 
were like family,
” recalled Yardena Kohen. 
“We had things in common.
” Club mem-
bers celebrated holidays together. Calling 

Mr. Weiss “a very 
sensible human 
being,
” Kohen said he 
led UJSC’s campaign 
to raise funds for a 
monument dedicated 
to their deceased 
loved ones at Hebrew 
Memorial Park 
Cemetery in Clinton 
Township. 
Attorney Arthur “
Art” and Rabbi 
Mordechai “Mottel” are the Weiss sons. The 
family lived in Northwest Detroit before 
moving in 1969 to Oak Park.
Rabbi Weiss said their father was “a very 
caring, very concerned and loving parent” 
along with their mother. “He wanted the 
best from us. I remember in school, he 
wanted us to excel. And we did.
”
“Michael was a hardworking family 
man,
” said friend Shari Weiss. “He and Lili 
worked side by side at their dry-cleaning 
store” — King Cleaners on Grand River in 
Detroit’s Rosedale Park neighborhood. 
After his wife’s passing at age 53, Mr. 
Weiss married another survivor from 
Youngstown, Ohio. Her birth name was 
Lilly Weiss, and her late husband was 
another Michael. “Both lovely ladies,
” Shari 
Weiss said.
Art said for much of his father’s life, 
“it was painful for him to talk about the 
Holocaust. He wanted us to grow up nor-
mal.
” After retiring, though, Mr. Weiss 
found a new calling:
“Michael was a beloved volunteer speak-
er,
” said a Zekelman Holocaust Center 
(HC) statement. “His stories and person-
ality engaged listeners of all ages, inspiring 
them to be more compassionate and take a 
stand against hatred.
”
Silow, who interviewed Mr. Weiss for 
his biography in Portraits of Honor: Our 
Michigan Holocaust Survivors (portrait-
sofhonor.org), said, “He wanted people to 
know the importance of Holocaust remem-
brance.
” 
Silow started the HC-based project with 
the cooperation of CHAIM, an organiza-

tion for children of Holocaust survivors in 
Michigan. 
 Mr. Weiss wrote his memoir, Chimneys 
and Chambers: The Lingering Smell of the 
Holocaust, and recorded a DVD. 
A daily worshiper at Dovid Ben Nuchim, 
Mr. Weiss’ passion for shul was legendary. 
He was the gabbai, choosing who would 
be given the honor of an aliyah to read the 
Torah, and served occasionally as the con-
gregation’s cantor.
“To hear Michael recite the Mi She-
beirach prayer for the sick was a spiritual 
experience,
” said Rabbi Avie Shapiro. “To 
hear him speak about the Holocaust was to 
hear a sermon about the value of human 
life.
”
Mordechai summed up his father with 
a story. It was a dangerously cold Shabbat 
and Mr. Weiss’ sons did not want the 
person who usually pushed his wheelchair 
to bring him to the shul. Even the rabbi 
advised him not to come. Frail as he was, 
Mr. Weiss bundled up and pushed his 
wheelchair to the corner. Then he sat and 
waited. When someone innocently walking 
by said, “Hello, Mr. Weiss. Do you need any 
help?” the man was recruited to push him 
to the shul a half mile away.
“When my dad was determined to do 
something, he did it,
” Mordechai said.
Mr. Weiss is survived by his children, 
Arthur Weiss, Rabbi Mordechai (Jackie) 
Weiss, Eva Aron and George Aron; and 
numerous grandchildren and great-
grandchildren. He was the beloved 
husband of the late Lili Weiss and the late 
Lilly Weiss.
Interment was in Hebrew Memorial 
Park Cemetery. Memorial contributions 
may be made to Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, 
15751 Lincoln Drive, Southfield, MI 48078, 
(248) 557-6750, yby.org; Congregation 
Dovid Ben Nuchim, 14800 W
. Lincoln 
Road, Oak Park, MI 48237, (248) 569-0192, 
dbndetroit.org; or Zekelman Holocaust 
Center, 28123 Orchard Lake Road, 
Farmington Hills, MI 48334, (248) 553-
2400, holocaustcenter.org. Arrangements 
by Hebrew Memorial Chapel. 

A Revered Survivor

Michael Weiss 

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

