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Document ID: 131928537
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Document Collection: M.18 - Documentation of the Central Location Index (CLI) of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in New York
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Link to Online Archive: Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution | 71410001 - M.18 - Documentation of the Central Location Index (CLI) of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in New York
Born on 18.09.1902 in Tarnów (Poland)
Deported from France
https://ressources.memorialdelashoah.org/notice.php?q=identifiant_origine:(FRMEMSH040870792887)
Pictures:
http://base.auschwitz.org/wiezien.php?lang=en&ok=osoba&id_osoba=78390
Wife: Mila Glass
Mother: Helena (Chaya) Glass (survived)
Brother: Henri Glass (survived)
Cautious, sensible elder brother Henri and his resourceful wife Sonia remained in Paris using false identification papers. They had to move from apartment to apartment to avoid detection, especially after being denounced by neighbors. Prior to the war Henri, the only sibling with higher education, had invented an early version of a machine that microfilmed and shrunk down documents. During the war he traveled secretly all over France with his machine, saving public and private archives from the Nazis and the Vichy government. Later, Henri’s machine made him a very wealthy man, but in a holdover from the war, he continued to keep a low profile.
Brother Alex survived
The diminutive Alex (Freeman describes him as “small, bald and tough like a bullet”) was by far the most colorful member of the family. Defiant by nature, he recklessly went out into the streets of Chrzanow as a boy to fight anti-Semites during pogroms. Despite the odds and with no financial backing, he established himself by his early 20s as a couturier in Paris, and managed to relocate his business to the French Riviera during the war. The Nazi and Vichy authorities kept close tabs on him, but he was able to avoid arrest thanks to ties with top military brass under whom he served bravely during a stint in the French Foreign Legion.
When Alex eventually got into trouble, he fled and hid in the countryside of Auvergne in central France with the help of the Resistance. Notwithstanding his fierce post-war criticism of wartime collaborators, Freeman discovered that Alex had not been averse to collaborating with the enemy himself if it mean his survival. “Life-saving pragmatism took precedence over his loyalty to a greater cause,” Freeman wrote of her great-uncle.
Sister: Sala Glass (survived)