Born: Sioma Zaczepinski
Grodno, Poland
June 15, 1940
Sam Zaczepinski was born on June 15, 1940 in Grodno, Poland. The Second World War had started only nine months earlier and the region was under occupation by Soviet forces. On June 23, 1941, the family’s house was bombed by the German army as it invaded from the west. One of Sam’s sisters was killed in the bombing. His parents hid his other sister with a Christian family. Later they would find out that she had been denounced to the Nazis and murdered.
Zaczepinski and his parents were sent to the Kamionka and Grodno ghettos, where Sam’s father worked as mechanic for the German forces. A German driver helped the family escape the ghetto. The Zaczepinskis hid in the home of Michail Tolochko, a Belarussian farmer the family knew from before the war. As neighbors grew suspicious, Tolochko and his brothers dug a hideout for the Zaczepinskis in the woods of the Różanka forest, where the family hid for 18 months. Meanwhile, many of the Zaczepinski family’s relatives were sent to the Treblinka killing center.
After the war, Sam and his parents lived in Poland. The family continued to experience antisemitism and moved to Israel in 1961 where Zaczepinski met his future wife. Through a relative in Tennessee, Sam was admitted to the University of Chattanooga. He then transferred to the engineering school at University of Tennessee in Knoxville. After Zaczepinski’s mother died in Israel, his father joined Sam in the U.S.
Parents:
Faivel (Fajwel) Zaczepinski, survived
Luta Kantor Zaczepinska, survived
Siblings:
Sister, d. Grodno, 1941
Sister, d. in Holocaust
Sara, b. May 15, 1945