Menachem Glaser

Name at birth

Menachem “Mendel” Glaser

Date of birth

12/01/1916

Where were you born?

Bersonov, Romania

Where did you grow up?

Bersonov, Romania

Name of father, occupation

Alter Meir Eliyahu, Religious studies teacher

Maiden name of mother, occupation

Shayna Rachel, Homemaker

Immediate family (names, birth order)

Parents, Dina (sister), Yocheved (sister), Abraham (brother), Yitzhak (brother), and I

Who survived the Holocaust?

Abraham, Yitzhak, and I (father died in 1929 before the war)

In September 1942 I was taken into the Hungarian army, I went AWOL (absent without leave) and was picked up in early 1943 by the Soviets. I was transported across the Urals in a cattle car. The majority did not survive the transport due to freezing conditions.

I was in the Soviet work camps until typhus killed most of the prisoners. Those of us who survived were placed in an infirmary and from there, in the beginning of 1944; I volunteered to join the Czech Brigade.

To learn more about this survivor, please visit

The Holocaust Memorial Center Oral History Collection

https://www.holocaustcenter.org/visit/library-archive/oral-history-department/glaser-menachem/

Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)

Soviet Labor Camp

Where were you in the Former Soviet Union?

In Russia

Where did you go after being liberated?

Yablonitz, Czechoslovakia and then in late 1948 to Netanya, Israel

When did you come to the United States?

October 1957

Where did you settle?

Detroit, Michigan

How is it that you came to Michigan?

My wife, Bella, had an aunt who had come to the United States before the war who was living in the Detroit area. Bella’s surviving siblings settled in the area, with the exception of her sister Yoli who lived in New York.

Occupation after the war

Religious studies educator

When and where were you married?

September 7, 1947

Spouse

Bella Glaser, Homemaker

Children

Malka Littman, educator and Aura Glaser, clinical psychologist

Grandchildren

Three: Amir, Ron, and Yoav Three great-grandchildren: Maya, Lexi and Lilly

What do you think helped you to survive?

Faith (bitachon), determination to see my family again, and my mother who came to me in a dream and told me that I would survive the war.