Rose Blauner (nee Solewicz)

I was born on June 13, 1927 in Kazimierz, Poland to Anna and Samuel Solewicz. Kazimierz is a town near Krakow. I had six siblings named David, Helene, Golda, Zalman, Luzer, Solewicz and Kopel.

In 1939, I was twelve years old and war had broken out in Poland. I was taken in by a local Catholic Polish family during the war. The family told people that I was a cousin visiting from another part of Poland. I lived on the farm pretending to be a Catholic throughout the war.

When the war ended, I remained in Poland. Two of my six siblings survived the war – David and Helene. David and Helene both immigrated to Brazil after the war.

After the war in Poland, I met my husband Max Blauner. We got married in Poland and eventually moved to Germany. We gave birth to our first child in Frankfort. We had a second child in 1948 in Stuttgart. In 1952, we immigrated to New York on the Queen Elizabeth ll. We lived in the Bronx. In the Bronx I gave birth to two additional children. We eventually moved to Yonkers, New York where I live today.

Rose’s granddaughter Kim shared that “Rose has taught me what resiiency looks like. Despite losing most of her family as a child, she has always been the strongest and most positive woman. Recently she has been sick but throughout her life she has been a role model for looking at things in a positive way and I believe this is in part due to her survival in the Holocaust.”

My siblings David and Helene both survived the war and immigrated to Brazil after the war.