Dr. John Hartman's Obit of Rozia Felner

Obituary Department: New York Times

This is pertinent information about the death of Ernestyna Felner, the last remaining Jewish woman in Przemysl Poland who survived the Holocaust.

Sincerely,

John J. Hartman, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Remembrance and Reconciliation, Inc.

300 S. Hyde Park Avenue, Suite 150

Tampa, FL 33606

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ERNESTYNA FELNER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR DIES AT 92

Ernestyna Rozia Felner died in Przemysl, Poland on October 22, 2006 at the age of 92 after a short illness. Mrs. Felner was the last Jewish woman known to have survived the Holocaust in her home town where she lived all of her life. Born Ernestyna Alweiss, she married her husband, Edmund, an accountant. When the Germans invaded Poland in September, 1939 her two brothers, Pinkas and Jakob, were among 600 Jewish men killed by special ethnic cleansing units of the SS known as Einsatzgruppen. She and her husband were forced to live in the Ghetto created by the SS , but they escaped before the first transports took the inhabitants of the Ghetto, including the remainder of her family, to the death camp at Belzec. They were hidden by Ukrainians in a secret second story room where they survived the war. She worked as an economic planner after the war and after her husband’s death in 1978 became a living symbol of Jewish life in this eastern Polish town on the Ukrainian border. Her life story was recounted in the book, ‘I Remember Every Day..’ The Fate of the Jews of Przemysl During World War II. Ironically, her death came on the very day that a ceremony was held commemorating the restoration of the Jewish cemetery and memorializing the Jews of Galicia who died in the Holocaust.