[Page 362]

Derecziners in America

[Page 363]

Joe (Jonah) Silkovich & his wife ע”ה

The Committee of the Dereczin Society of America (Individuals not identified)

Immigration was substantial at that time, and the admission to America was – unrestricted. Whoever had the money to buy passage on a ship could come to America.

Who emigrated then? People who found it difficult to make a living in the old country, in the cities and towns of the Pale of Settlement in the large expanse of Czarist Russia. The emigration from Dereczin was of this kind also. Also, Jews who were blessed by God with five and six daughters, voyaged to America to make a little bit of money for dowries for their daughters. Many Jews in those years came actually only for a few years, and then went back to their homes and families.

Those who had decided to remain in America and later send for their families were lonely individuals, full of yearning for their old home, where they had left behind a peaceful small-town way of life, and to a traditional lifestyle. Being so alone, without their kin or a common language, landsleit from various cities began to meet periodically, and it was in this fashion that the various “Societies” were founded, in which people found a solace for their loneliness.

Our Dereczin Society was founded this way as well. First of all, the founders learned how such a society had to be run. It is necessary to put together and write down a constitution of the society, elect a president, a vice-president, a secretary, finance secretary and hospitaler. The president runs the meetings, the secretary records the minutes in the folio, the finance secretary handles money matters, the hospitaler concerns himself with members who have fallen ill, visiting them and bringing them their sick benefits, a small sum of money which the sick person is able to use to support themselves for a significant period of time, while he is not working and has no income during the period of his illness.

Our society was very active from the time it was first founded. We had frequent meetings, and met with great feeling, as if we were all still in the old country, in Dereczin. We all kept close to one another. When new arrivals came from Dereczin, they immediately joined the society. In this manner we grew to between 150 -160 members.

When we younger people came to America and joined our society, it became somewhat more enlivened, – the leadership [became] more liberal and free. When one came to a meeting, one felt like one was among his own kind.

The society did many good things for its members, helped them in their time of need, took care of their families that were distant – and when it happened that one of the members managed to work his way up and begin to earn a little more, forgetting his wife and children in Dereczin, falling in love with another woman, without a kerchief and wig on her head – the society would send for the wife and children, bring them to their husband and father in America, and made him a “surprise.”

In those years it was fashionable to arrange an annual ball with music. The young people would come to spend time and dance away the whole night. Many who didn't live in New York, would journey to attend these balls. We knew, that at these balls, banquets and meetings, we would be able to meet all the Derecziners.

Not all of our landsleit joined the society. There were instances where a Derecziner would fall in love with a girl from a different city or country, as for example, a Galitzianer girl, and he left to become a member in the society of the bride's father – even though he felt like a stranger there, and even

[Page 364]

didn't understand their speech.

When the stream of emigration fell off, the activities of the society fell off as well. But during the years of the First World War and immediately thereafter, we formed an aid committee, that initially was established by natives who were Bundists, and to which other Derecziners were subsequently attracted. All the Derecziners would come to its meetings, we gathered funds, helped set up a credit union in Dereczin, and opened a modern school for the children.

The years went by again, and the Second World War came upon us like a storm, with its terrible tragedies. We became active once again, Bundists and Zionists together, even those who were not members in our society. We called meetings in private homes, raised money to send relief packages to the surviving refugees, who were at that time still in camps in Germany, Italy. We sent help to those who arrived in the Holy Land after long years of wandering, and to us in America. Our wives organized a special ‘Ladies Auxiliary’ – a women's aid society, and did significant and important work. More that 700 packages were sent to our brothers and sisters, the refugees that survived alive after the exterminations, in the camps.

This work was accomplished through the members of the committee and by the society, together with other volunteer Dereczin landsleit, and even non-Derecziners.

The following were active: Berkowitz, Minkowitz, Nathan Bliss ע”ה, Mr. & Mrs. Silkovich, Rachel Feldman, Mr. & Mrs. Abramovich. Our trustworthy Kadish Feder put in a lot of work along with his wife and two sisters. They would personally pack the packages, after the ladies would buy the various products and clothing, all of this being done like a sacred duty, in the evening hours after a full day's work. This was done in Feder's store, and he would then take care of expediting their delivery.

Many of those, who helped out with this important and difficult work, are to our sadness, no longer with us today. Let us remember them and honor their memory.

Now the society is small, but it is much like it was before. Everything that involves the memory of Dereczin is dear to us, precious and holy.

We are all impatiently waiting for the Dereczin Yizkor Book, for which we have done as much as we could. The Book will serve as a memorial to our brothers and sisters who were wiped out, and as a link that will tie us all together, the Derecziners who live in Israel, in America, and the world at large.

Fanny Berman-Feder

Facsimile of thank-you note to Fanny Berman for $100 donation

Ida Sarnatsky-Feder

It is true that the complete material for the entire period had been in my possession, concerning our relief work done in New York: all the correspondence from Derecziners who survived, sent from the various camps, all together a couple of hundred letters; all the minutes of our meetings;

[Page 365]

letters from our landsleit in America, letters from Israel, correspondence with agencies; copies of all letters we sent out; newspaper ads; Lists of the funds we allocated and sent to Israel. I kept all of this material up to a couple of years ago, and I am terribly frustrated now that I no longer have it. We could have used a part of this relief material for the Yizkor Book.

I am therefore writing this from memory, but I do believe that I am telling the essentials.

During the war years, starting in 1941 or 1942, the Dereczin Society in New York called a meeting of all Derecziner landsleit that lived in New York. The purpose of the meeting was – to start doing something for our beloved town of Dereczin.

This was in the midst of the heat of war, at a time when dark clouds were hanging over the world, and Jews in Europe were engulfed by the flames of war. The Nazi armies marched from one country to the next and from city to city at lightning speed.

As soon as they occupied a city, their first awful objective was to torture or exterminate the Jewish populace using all manner of terrifying means. Thousands upon thousands of Jews, our brethren in Israel, had already been wiped out by then. We, in America did not yet fully comprehend the extent of the catastrophe, the monumental tragedy that befell our nearest and dearest in our ancestral home Dereczin, along with the entire Jewish population in the lands occupied by the Nazis. Reports concerning these matters in the newspapers were short and meager, but enough to alarm all of us.

At the time of our meeting to which the members of the Dereczin society were called, a sum of money was raised, and immediately a committee was formed that was called the ‘Dereczin Relief Committee.’ The following landsleit joined the committee: Jonah Silkowitz, Seelah Silkowitz, Nathan Bliss, Shifra Bliss, Yitzhak Berkowitz, Fanny Berman, Hirschel Feder, Ida Sarnatsky, Rosa Siskind, Itzl Weissberg, Rachel Efras, Joe Abramowitz, Moshe Goldfarb, Moshe Bliss, Becky Mikatsky. All who were nominated for the committee were elected: Yitzhak Berkowitz - President; Abraham Kadish Feder - Secretary; Morris Minkowitz - Treasurer.

At the outset of its work, the committee set out the objective to collect all the addresses of landsleit in New York and out of New York, across the entire country, and to establish contact with all Derecziners. To the extent possible, an effort was made to do so out of the country. At the time, this was not among the simplest of things to do, but after a time, we were able to get in contact with landsleit in the larger cities, such as Chicago, California, Washington, and especially in Boston, from which we got financial assistance.

Our meetings were held every Sunday in the home of our chairman, Berkowitz, and this helped us a lot, because his residence was centrally located in New York. His doors were always open to us, and despite his advanced age, he did for the work of the relief committee as much as his energies permitted.

Slowly, through letters, telephone calls and newspaper ads, we assembled a number of addresses of Dereczin landsleit, and also of some who were not born in Dereczin, but still had kin in Dereczin. We made contact with Canada very quickly, Argentina, and especially Israel.

The first letter we received from Israel reached us a short while after we initiated activity in New York. Malka Alper had written the letter. From her letter, we learned that the Derecziners in Israel were also organized, and were readying an aid activity. This boosted morale for our own work.

Through letters and the press, we reached out to our kinfolk across the land, to inform them of the existence of our committee, and of its objectives. A large portion of our landsleit were responsive, some with more and some with lesser contributions. Many of them also wrote us letters, in which they communicated more or less the same sentiment: It is a shame that we are so far from you, but we are with you in your important effort, and we will be here for you every time you need to turn to us. God should only give you the strength and the time to do this sacred duty. Such correspondence only served to revitalize us even further, and bolstered our energies to carry out the relief work.

[Page 366]

When the war ended, we got the chance to get in contact with a group of surviving Derecziners, who were wandering through the camps in Germany and Austria, Italy and Shanghai. As quickly as the news would arrive of someone who was a Derecziner in a camp, we would immediately send out packages of food and clothing.

It took us a long time to send the packages. The hours and days stretched into weeks and months, which with dedication and energy, we donated to the first of the aid activities for the needy. We personally packed the food parcels, even though it would have been easier to send them through certain companies. We calculated that if we personally bought the food, and packed it ourselves, and then sent it by post, it would cost us much less, thanks to the fact that we had several stubborn women on our committee, who went so far as to neglect their own housework, and came to participate in organizing the packages, and through this saved a goodly sum of money, and gave the committee a characteristic of hearty friendship. The women, as we said, bought the food themselves, and we packed it in my store. So now I want to thank those women from the bottom of my heart who did this holy work in those days with commitment, and a special thanks to the ladies, Fanny Berman, Ida Sarnatsky, Falla Jacobson; And may the memory of Becky Sikotsky ז”ל, and of Seelah Silkowitz ז”ל shine brightly in our eyes, who were among the most active of the ladies, in regard to the parcels.

In those years, Jonah Silkowitz took a major part in the work concerning the packages, and in general regarding the relief committee. With a heavy heart, I recall our active committee member, Nathan Bliss (Blizniansky) ז”ל, who was always first to come to work, demanded of everyone that they do their part, gave direction, and then personally did more than he was able to. He also participated in the work on this Yizkor Book. To all of our great sadness, he is no longer with us, and did not live to see the Dereczin Yizkor Book published.

A difficult and stressful burden was also assumed no less by the writer of these lines. My work consisted not only of doing the packing itself, addressing the packages, and then posting them. I was involved with the entire work of the committee, being the central address for all the [incoming] correspondence from Dereczin survivors, who wrote to us with blood and tears about their wartime experiences. I took on the important task of responding to them, finding some words of comfort to offer each of them. I turned over all correspondence and accounting to the committee, for everything that was done during those years for the Dereczin survivors. It was my task to stay in touch with all the Dereczin landsleit, in New York and across the country, and with the Landsmanschaft organizations in other countries. I wrote the ads for the newspapers, and was in very close contact with our Dereczin kinfolk in Israel.

I did this work during all the years in which the committee existed. This took a very great deal of time. I did this with heart, love and soul.

During those years, we thought about publishing a Yizkor Book, and also about erecting a monument to those of our kin exterminated in Dereczin. We approached the ‘Dereczin Society,’ requesting space on their cemetery plot to put up the monument. At a meeting of the Society, it was agreed to allocate enough space for us to erect such a monument to our martyrs. To our great sorrow, nothing ever came of this plan because of financial difficulties.

Now the Yizkor Book is finally appearing. Let us hope that in time, we will yet put up a monument to those Derecziners who were exterminated.

A certain time after the establishment of the help committee for the refugees, a number of our survivors managed to reach the shores of America. We gave them a little financial help. On a number of occasions we also sent funds to Israel, to assist those Derecziners who made aliyah and needed help from a different quarter.

At the end of October 1946, a six-chapter account of the demise of the Dereczin Jewish community was published in Der Tag (Today Der Tag-Morgen-Journal) written by the Kulakowskis. It was titled: “How Jews Suffered and Fought in Dereczin.” We received the manuscript from Israel. Independently,

[Page 367]

at the same time, a digest of the experiences of the Dereczin Jewish community during the war years and the German occupation, was also published in the Forverts (i.e. The Jewish Daily Forward). A list of the surviving Derecziners was published in Der Tag, Der Forverts, & Der Freiheit.

To everyone's great sorrow, several active members of the relief committee are no longer with us today. We will always remember our dear friends, Seela Silkowitz, Nathan Bliss, Yitzhak Berkowitz, Itzl Weissenberg, Joe Abramowitz, Moshe Goldfarb, Moshe Bliss, Becky Tikatsky – ז”ל.

We were in contact with Israel through all the years of relief work. The work of the Israeli Landsmanschaft will be told by them in the Yizkor Book, I only wish to recall with a few words the active role of Malka Alper in all Dereczin issues. We, here in America, were constantly under the influence of her letters, reminders, requests and appeals – and she did all of this with a gentle wisdom and friendly patience.

May this Yizkor Book only serve to etch, even more deeply into our hearts, the last will and testament of that Jewish community so abruptly cut from us in our hometown of Dereczin, wiped off the face of the earth, and may its memory remain forever in our minds and in our hearts.

New York, 12 Kislev 5727, November 1966

Nahum-Nathan Bliss, ע”ה

His parents were well known in town. His father – a handsome Jewish man with a proud bearing, and additionally the owner of a house on the Deutsche Gasse. His mother – also a pretty lady, a ‘woman of valor,’ managing a substantial business and raising a large family. The father was among the honored members of the synagogue. I can remember even now: when the young lads would exit the synagogue during the reading of the Torah and engage in vociferous conversation and noisy play, – Nahum's father would go outside and give a shout: ‘Quiet down you shkatzim!’ – and you could hear his shout reverberate from one end of the Schulhof to the other.

Those were his parents.

It didn't take long, and it was told around town that Nahum Meshl's was encountered during the evenings in the garden associating with – working class people! You can imagine how his parents reacted to this when the news finally reached them. No small thing: a scion of the Deutsche Gasse consorting with the young people from the Slonim or Zelva Gasse, or even worse, from the Neuer Gasse! It appears that he brought back the new ideas of the labor movement from Warsaw. At that time there already existed circles among the intelligentsia who behind their backs would be called tzitzialisten (i.e. socialists). For a long time they were circles that kept to themselves, but now they began to mix with the working class young boys and girls. A sharp conflict was initiated between the traditionally-minded parents and their revolutionary-minded children.

It also had to be that Nahum fell in love with a working class girl, a seamstress, a uniquely beautiful

[Page 368]

girl from a fine, but very poor family from the Zelva Gasse. It was here that Nahum displayed his strong character. His mother literally turned the world upside down to avoid making the match. Not only once, did she insult Nahum's beloved girlfriend in the middle of the street. Nothing helped – they got married, and their love lasted to the last day, until he lost her. They raised three fine children, two sons and a daughter.

Years passed, and I was already in America when I became aware that Nahum and his family were in Argentina, and was unable to get themselves settled. He then came to America and went to work. I met him at our Dereczin Society, which at that time numbers over 150 members. We became friends, and I was impressed by what a liberal individual Nahum was.

In those years in the Dereczin Society, just as was the case in all of the societies of this kind in America, the leadership came from the traditionally-minded Jews who had been here for a long time. Nahum-Nathan Blizniansky-Bliss was a free-thinking Jew, and he strove to transform the society into a modern, liberal organization. It didn't take long before the active Nathan Bliss was elected as President of our Society.

Then the First World War broke out. We immediately formed a committee and began to collect funds, in order to be able to send aid to Dereczin, for a credit union, for the school and the Heders. The Derecziners in New York responded warmly, but the accumulated funds were insufficient to support our brethren in the old country. There were also Dereczin kinfolk in Boston, but they were not organized. They wanted our committee to have a meeting with them.

We decided that two of our New York landsleit would travel to Boston, and conduct a fund-raising campaign. But the larger part of the Derecziners were workers, who could not leave their jobs for even one day.

Until one day, Nathan comes into me with an order: ‘Joe, you're going to Boston, and no excuses!’ At that moment, I was reminded of his father and his strong, commanding tone of voice. Nathan knew only too well that I was deeply enmeshed in a new business. He would often visit me concerning the work of our Society – but no excuses would help now. I took along Ephraim (Foycha) Berkowitz's wife, and we traveled to Boston. We traveled to Moshe, Beileh-Rasheh's, a shoemaker from the Shoemaker's Synagogue, a Jew well-versed in leading prayer and reading Torah, a dear man, who received us very warmly.

He and his wife went out to the Dereczin landsleit and we returned to New York with a pretty sum of a couple of hundred dollars.

Another couple of decades went by, and the Second World War completely destroyed our old home and the German murderers killed out nearly all of the Jews of our town. It was necessary to help those refugees who remained alive – and once again a committee was established, with Nathan Bliss as its head.

As was his custom, he threw himself into the relief work with his life and being, coming to the meetings in rain and snow. To our sorrow, many of the members of our Society were no longer with us, but among the younger ones, the Feder family was very active. In the middle of his vigorous activity, the greatest of all his tragedies befell Nathan – after a long period of illness, his beloved wife passed away. He was broken, but he did everything he could to remain involved. He even made a visit to Israel, and it was from there that he came back with the idea of doing the Yizkor Book.

He did not live to see this memorial book for his beloved, old home – He had a terrible misfortune – being run over by an automobile. He suffered along for two ye4ars before he expired.

A good friend, a partner, a beloved Dereczin landsman, who always stood at the head of all activities, had taken leave of us. Let us revere his memory!

[Page 369]

I remember to this day, how back in Dereczin we used to tell literally legends about that Golden Land across the sea – about America. It is no wonder then, that a large number of our young people emigrated to that faraway promising country. There were those who fled the military draft, and others who sought to escape arrest for their revolutionary activities. The largest portion, however, were men who on no account could find gainful employment from which they could derive a living with which to support themselves and their families. In those years, the Holy Land was not yet recognized as a place that could take in immigrants.

Fate had brought me to America two years prior on a visit of a couple of months. It was especially interesting for me to link up with our landsleit, observe their way-of-life and see, what they had achieved, and what they had attained after so many years in one of the greatest, richest, and most highly developed countries in the world – in the United States of North America.

The largest portion of our landsleit have been in America for about 50-60 years, and also longer. An added small percentage came there in the first years after the Second World War.

Our first meeting took place immediately on the first day of our arrival, with Rachel Feldman-Efrat, who is, in spite of my understatement, the one well-situated person of all of our landsleit in America. She lives in a large beautiful apartment in the very center of New York, in Central Park, in the section of diplomatic residences, artists or just simply wealthy people. Together with members of her family, we visited her summer home, furnished with all the latest and most beautiful appointments, and constructed in a highly desirable locale. Rachel Feldman immediately telephoned the committee of the Dereczin Society in order to alert them to our arrival. At about 10PM, a delegation of the Society's committee, among them the President of the Society, [Abraham] Kadish Feder and his wife, the Secretary Khomeh Abelovich,(who had already visited Israel a couple of times), the Treasurer, Mrs. Zlotnik.

I studied together with President Kadish Feder in the Heder of Izaakovich (Der Mikhoisker). Feder emigrated to America in 1918. At that time he went to his father, who had already been there for a couple of years. It is difficult to find such a warm person, a Jew and a friend, such a loving Derecziner, as was Kadish Feder. He works hard, from 7AM to 10PM in order to make a living. He has been a member of the Poalei Zion organization for his entire life, and to this day he has been unable to permit himself to make a trip to Israel, the land about which he dreams, and for which he has been active for his entire life. In 1945, immediately after the war, when the first news started to arrive from the Dereczin survivors from Lodz, from Austria, Germany and Italy, Feder organized and led an activity to send packages to all those who had survived. Seeing that his days were completely occupied at work, he would get up at 3AM and begin the work of packing packages, and get them ready to be mailed via post. When a part of the surviving Derecziners came to America, he concerned himself with supporting everyone, so that they would have some initial sustenance upon arrival. It was other landsleit who told me this, since he himself was reticent about his own endeavors.

Feder's wife was a Rabbi's daughter, and their home was strictly kosher. His wife participated in all organizational obligations which Feder took upon himself. This is an open, Jewish home, which receives everyone in a warmhearted, Jewish fashion.

When I visited them, Feder's thoughts were dominated by only one single objective – raising the money to publish the Dereczin Yizkor Book. The process of raising money is not easy in America. Our Dereczin kinfolk are spread out and scattered

[Page 370]

throughout the land, and there are no really wealthy people among them. For a large portion of our landsleit, even dollars is a lot of money. Thanks to the loyal dedication of Kadish Feder, Khoma Abelovich, and Mrs. Zlotnik, the daughter of the Zelva Rabbi, it was possible to assemble a meaningful sum of money, and to send it to Israel in order to enable publication of the Book.

We became acquainted with Mrs. Zlotnik a couple of years earlier in Israel, when she had made a visit there. Her family lived through a gruesome tragedy: one of her sons was a well-known chemist and inventor; he had been a co-worker with the world famous atomic researcher Prof. [J. Robert] Oppenheim[er]. Her son's name was well known in scientific circles in America, after he had published a series of articles in the scientific research journals and the general American press covered him and his discoveries. On one day, he went out for ride with a friend in a small boat. An accident occurred – he was drowned. His friend survived. A short time afterwards, his friend published an important scientific article under his own name, which the family was informed that it was really the work of their son. A dark cloud of suspicion fell on his friend that he had murdered their son, in order to steal his scientific results. The Zlotnik family was literally broken. The wife of the family seeks solace in her work on the Dereczin Yizkor Book.

About 80 Dereczin landsleit took part in the banquet that was organized in our honor, the guests from Israel. A portion of them had been in the country for many years already, since before the First World War, such as Feiga-Leah Abramovich, a unique woman, Yehuda Shmuel's daughter, Shelkovich – a sympathetic Jew, full of humor and life, and yet others, whose names I cannot remember; a certain part of the participants had arrived in America after the Second World War already, such as Moshe Ferder, Tsirel Friedman-Kamenetsy, etc. Mostly they were working class people, worn out from long, hard years and long, hard days of work. They found no great good fortune in their labors. When I looked closely at them, I thought that the life of workers in Israel is both lighter, and more interesting. There were no young people at the banquet – similar to the case with us in Israel. The single younger couple were the brother of Kalman Abramovich and his wife – And he was already in his fifties.

The children of our landsleit, the American-born, are entirely different, and not at all like their parents. All are studying, and some already are engineers, lawyers, such as the sons of Khoma Ziskind of the Feders.

My visit to America came a short time after the Six-Day War, and the interest in hearing about and knowing what was going on in Israel and its brilliant victory over its enemies, who were prepared to annihilate her, was very high.

Every news item from Israel was literally swallowed down. This on the part of Jews, largely removed from Zionism, but our victory and Israel's strong will to survive, and to develop itself despite the Arab enemies and their strong allies and protectors, so inspired the Jews in America, that many of them would come here, if their economic circumstances would permit it.

A large portion of the older Dereczin landsleit in America has passed away. They have left a legacy behind – The Dereczin Society, with a small membership, who concern themselves with the burial plots for the Derecziners. The younger people are leaving the Society, and concern themselves with matters that are more important than burial plots. There often arise conflicts over this in the Dereczin community in America.

We owe a debt of gratitude to our American landsleit from the bottom of our hearts for their affection towards our homey [town] of Dereczin, for their energy in being willing to help everyone, and for their commitment to erect a monument to our Dereczin community – in the publication of our Yizkor Book.

[Page 371]

Sarah Slotnick & her husband, ע”ה. This is the ‘Mrs. Zlotnik’ in the prior David Rabinovich memoir.

The good teacher Reb Meir, apparently had a strong influence on his own little Sarah: she would listen in [on his lessons], and absorb the chapters of the Pentateuch along with the pupils, and this became deeply etched into her memory, and also into her feelings.

When she visited Israel a short time after our Jewish State was proclaimed, she thought that all the teachings of her father from the Pentateuch had come to life , and that everything that she had learned and remembered from his mouth, had taken on a substantial form in every corner of Our Land.

She was strongly interested in seeing the Dereczin Yizkor Book appear as quickly and as elegantly as possibly. She began to talk about it and work on it as soon as she returned from Israel, but it didn't proceed so quickly, and this cost her quite a bit of health.

When I visited New York in 1964, we met a couple of times, and it was at that time that the ‘Book Committee’ was selected, in which she took an active role. We exchanged correspondence frequently, until it was abruptly terminated by her untimely death.

Her memory will permeate the pages of our Yizkor Book!

Meir-Murray Slotnick, her son, ע”ה

The teacher, Meir Yanovsky, father of Sarah Slotnick (First on the left), with his family

Meir-Murray Slotnick was drowned in the large Barton Pond in Ann Arbor Michigan, when his boat, in which he was with a student colleague, capsized, and both oars fell into the water.

A strong wind began to blow up waves in the water, and capsized the boat with the two young people in it. The student immediately swam for shore to get help, and assistant professor Slotnick who was not a good swimmer, clung to the hull of the capsized boat. When the help arrived, Slotnick was no longer to be found. It was only on the following morning that his body was pulled from the water.

Meir Slotnick at the age of 20, was one of the youngest students to earn a PhD at Columbia University, and before he went to Michigan as an assistant professor, he studied nuclear physics at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, under the direction of Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Slotnick was born in Brooklyn, as the son of Leo & Sarah Slotnick and was graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in 1944, when he was barely 15 years old. He was appointed an assistant professor three weeks before his tragic death.

[Page 372]

Postscript in Translation

An obituary for Murray Slotnick appeared in The New York Times on Sunday, October 7, 1951. The text in the Dereczin Yizkor Book seems to have been taken largely from the obituary. He was buried on Tuesday, October 9, 1951, which was Yom Kippur Eve. The obituary identifies his student-companion during the accident as Donald A. Glaser.

The obituary goes on to identify his sister, Mrs. Roslin Kurtz, and a brother, Daniel Slotnick (then age 19) an assistant instructor of mathematics at Columbia.

Daniel L. Slotnick would go on to achieve prominence on his own in the field of computer science. The bulk of his career was spent at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where he arrived in 1963from the von Neumann computer project at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He was head of the ILLIAC IV project (1965), a machine which pioneered the new concept of parallel computation. ILLIAC IV was a SIMD computer built at Illinois, which was the first to use circuit card design automation outside IBM and the first to use ECL integrated circuits and multilayer circuit boards on a large scale. It had semiconductor memory and was the fastest computer in the world. Slotnick was a professor until his death in 1985.

The Daniel L. Slotnick Award was established for undergraduate students based on academic merit, exceptional leadership qualities, and good citizenship.

  Derechin, Belarus     Yizkor Book Project     JewishGen Home Page

Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 06 Jun 2023 by JH