Samuel Sternlicht

Born:
Zarzecze, Poland
October 20, 1894

Died: March 29, 1973

Samuel Sternlicht was born in the small village of Zarzecze, Poland at a time when the region belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up helping his family run their inn and country store and was fluent in four languages: German, Polish, Czech and Yiddish. Sternlicht was also familiar with prayerbook Hebrew, taught to him by tutors and his parents who kept kosher and observed traditional Orthodox Jewish customs.

Sternlicht married his wife Anna (née Geller) on August 20, 1919. The couple moved to Jaworze to establish their own store and had two children born in the town, Herta (b. 1920) and Arnold (b. 1921). After the unexpected deaths of their infant son and Anna’s father, the family returned to Chybie to live with Anna’s widowed mother Zofia Geller. There they had two more daughters, Edyta (b. 1924) and Eryka (b. 1928).

In 1930 the three-generation household moved to Bielsko where they lived in a spacious third-floor apartment located in the center of the city. From the balcony they could see the town’s magnificent synagogue only two blocks away. However, over the next few years the family witnessed the rise of the Nazi party in Germany and growing antisemitism across Europe. In 1937 a violent anti-Jewish pogrom broke out in Bielsko in 1937. The family’s lives would be shattered with the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939.

Fleeing the German army, the family abandoned their home in the middle of the night and made their way to the city of Wilno (Vilnius). Although once part of Poland, in September 1939 Wilno had been occupied by the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter the city was ceded to Lithuania. In Vilnius the Sternlichts’ lives briefly resumed some normalcy. Sternlicht opened a store and their younger children entered school. Their eldest daughter married and moved to Kaunas, Lithuania where she started a family of her own.

The Sternlichts’ lives were again tragically interrupted after the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940. One year later, Sternlicht was separated from Anna and their two younger daughters and sent to a labor camp in Siberia. He struggled to survive, enduring hard labor, sickness and starvation. The Sternlichts’ eldest daughter, still in Lithuania, was shot along with her husband and infant daughter when Nazis discovered them hiding in a bunker.

After the war the surviving members of the family returned to Poland, now a Soviet satellite. Seeing no future there, the Sternlichts helped their two youngest daughters leave for the American occupation zone in Germany. From there their daughters immigrated to the United States. In 1949 Samuel and Anna left for Israel and eventually joined them in the U.S.

Anna suffered a fatal stroke on July 28, 1970. Sternlicht passed away a few years later on March 29, 1973 and was buried next to his wife in Israel.

Parents:
Leon Sternlicht, d. natural causes, 1940
Anna Bribram Sternlicht, d. natural causes, 1932

Siblings:
Wiktoria, d. Soviet labor camp
Adolf, survived
Maurycy, d. in robbery, 1922
Rozalia, d. in Holocaust
Dorota, d. in Holocaust
Cecylia, d. in Holocaust
Emanuel, survived
Regina, survived

Children:
Herta Tabacznik, d. in Holocaust
Edyta (Edith) Mincberg, survived
Eryka (Erika) Schwer, survived

Samuel Sternlicht and his wife Anna. Photos courtesy of Edith Mincberg
Samuel Sternlicht and his family moved to this house in the village of Chybie, where they helped his mother-in-law Zofia Geller operate a country store. Photo from the collection of Michał Kajstura, whose ancestors attended the church seen in the photo.
Anna and Samuel Sternlicht had three daughters: Herta, Erika and Edith. This photo was taken in the early 1930s. Photo courtesy of Edith Mincberg
In 1930, the three-generation Sternlicht family moved to the top floor of this building in Bielsko. This photograph was taken in 1983 when Survivor Edith Mincberg (née Sternlicht) returned to visit Poland after the war. Photo courtesy of Edith Mincberg
Samuel Sternlicht's eldest daughter Herta (left) posed with her family, ca. 1941. Also pictured are Herta's husband Misha, their child Shulamit, and Herta's maternal grandmother Zofia Geller. All four were murdered in the Holocaust. Photo courtesy of Edith Mincberg
The gravestone of Samuel's mother, Anna Sternlicht, was later inscribed with the names of family members who died in the Holocaust. It is located in Bielsko. Photo courtesy of Edith Mincberg
The gravestone of Samuel's father, Leon Sternlicht (Yehuda Laib), in Bochnia, Poland. Photo courtesy of Edith Mincberg