14 | OCTOBER 27 • 2022
OUR COMMUNITY
continued from page 13
ON THE COVER
EDITH (LONDON)
KOZLOWSKI
Jay Kozlowski got the ball rolling for
his mother Edith’s birthday several
months in advance when he invited
family, friends, acquaintances — really,
any friendly soul — to send a con-
gratulatory card to her at his address.
As he wrote his fellow members of
CHAIM, a local organization for chil-
dren of Holocaust survivors: “One of
the simple pleasures she
enjoys is receiving cards
on holidays and special
occasions. She particu-
larly loves getting birth-
day greetings!”
Her desire was ful-
filled. Even since Edith’s
birthday party, held Sept.
24 at Bacco Ristorante
in Southfield, birthday
cards are arriving. Ruth
Kozlowski and her sib-
lings estimate that more
than 1,000 cards have
come for their mother
from near and far — even postmarked
from Europe and Australia.
“A lot saw her story on TV
(WXYZ),” said Ruth, the main care-
giver for her mother in Edith’s West
Bloomfield home. “Some schools
found out about the birthday and sent
cards. People are writing, ‘I don’t know
you but heard how you are turning
100.’”
Given the first name of Itka,
Kozlowski was one of four daugh-
ters born to grocery store owners
Dvora (Frajdenrajch) and Icek (Isaac)
London. Home for them, and also
the family of her future husband, was
Radom, Poland. After the
Nazis began occupying
the city on Sept. 9, 1939,
Jewish residents, includ-
ing Itka’s parents and
grandparents, met a hor-
rific end at the Treblinka
extermination camp in
Poland.
Looking back, Edith
said, “I was lucky in one
respect” — she and her
two surviving younger
sisters remained together
throughout the war. They
were slave laborers at
Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and some
smaller camps before their liberation
by the Russian army. By chance, after
the war, Edith’s best friend Binka
Kurant was in Stuttgart, Germany,
up on a bicycle and collected her at a
neighbor’s house,” Parker was told.
They married a few months later in
1945. Visas to the United States came
through while they were living with their
first-born child, Alfred, in Stuttgart,
Germany. Viola’s uncle in Detroit, Joe
Greenberger, sponsored them. The
Kleins arrived on April 22, 1947, and
went on to have three more children,
seven grandchildren and three great-
grandchildren.
Parker said Viola always enjoyed
doing needlepoint, making bracelets
and playing bridge. Her parents used to
work out every day at their health club,
where Viola did yoga and learned to
swim. They were members of the former
Congregation Beth Achim in Southfield.
Gerson died on Sept. 16, 2007.
“My extremely outgoing mother always
had hundreds of friends,” Parker said.
Viola was active in the Hungarian Club
and the Survivors’ social organization,
Shaarit HaPlaytah and its bowling league.
“She’s also a wonderful baker and cook,
and liked to entertain. Anyone who didn’t
have a place to be on Shabbat or holidays,
even on Dec. 25, they had a place to go.
“My mother is never depressed and
always upbeat,” Parker added. “She’s
always grateful to breathe and has a
big smile on her face. She is a very easy
mother. And she made us feel like we
were wonderful human beings.”
The four Klein children and their parents,
Gerson and Viola. Al, born in Germany,
is 19 years older than the youngest child,
Jeff, in front of him.
continued on page 16
Edith Kozlowski
and her great-
granddaughter
Sloane
Edith and Marvin
Kozlowski on their
wedding day.