Morris Rosenblat, survivor who taught about Holocaust, dies

Morris Rosenblat, survivor who taught about Holocaust, dies

Posted on Wed, Apr. 02, 2008
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER

ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com





His name was Morris A. Rosenblat, except in the Auschwitz death camp, where he was B8079.
A teenager when Nazis rousted him from the Lodz, Poland, ghetto with his mother and two brothers, Rosenblat was loaded into a cattle car bound for a living hell where Jews were gassed and burned.
Rosenblat survived World War II with one brother, moved to Israel, married and moved to Canada, then became a North Miami Beach tailor raising two sons.
But after retiring, he found his true calling: telling his story to students and teachers, so that they might understand, remember, and enlighten others about the deadly consequences of hate.
He died March 13 of pancreatic cancer, at 79. .
Speaking out ''was his mission in life,'' said Riva Rosenblat, his wife of 45 years. ``He felt that he survived for a reason. . . . He suffered so much, but he had the understanding that he wasn't alone.''
Rosenblat addressed summer teacher-training institutes at the University of Miami and at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., and classes at any school that asked.
On Mondays, he volunteered at the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial.
''You can't imagine the impact he had on thousands of our students and teachers,'' said Miriam Klein Kassenoff, a Holocaust educator with the Miami-Dade schools and UM, and an Appalachian institute lecturer/consultant.
In 2000, Morris Rosenblat accompanied high school students to the death camps on the March of the Living, a journey that brought him to the place where B8079 was tattooed on his left forearm.
Although he covered the tattoo during his daily life, he safeguarded it as a symbol of his survival. When doctors needed a vein from that arm for heart bypass surgery, he made them promise to keep the number intact.
He was born Moshe Aaron Rozenblat in the Polish town of Brzeziny; population: 12,000 people, half of them Jews. In 1942, those who hadn't already been killed were herded into the Lodz Ghetto. His father, Shaja, a tailor, had been gassed in a mobile death chamber.
Two years later, the remaining family members were sent to where his mother, Chava, and youngest brother, Benjamin, perished.
As the war drew to a close in May 1945, Morris and his brother, Cvi, were death-marched into the Austrian woods, where American soldiers liberated them.
From a Displaced Persons camp, they went to Israel and fought with the Haganah, a paramilitary force, in the 1948 War of Independence.
Morris followed their only surviving uncle to Canada.
On a 1958 vacation in Israel, Morris met Riva Shimansky, whose family survived the war in the Soviet Union. They married a year later and spent eight more years in Canada before settling in North Miami Beach.
For 25 years, husband and wife operated Point East Tailors, at West Dixie Highway and 172nd Street. They retired in 1995.
Speaking in classrooms, ''he made the kids feel like he understood what it must feel like at their age and what he went through at their age,'' Kassenoff said.
In 1998, the second great tragedy of Morris Rosenblat's life befell him: the lung-cancer death of son Benjamin, 38. Though devastated, ''he suffered quietly,'' his wife said.
A few years later, Rosenblat heard that Appalachian State was establishing a Holocaust honors program, and on one day's notice, he showed up to speak, said Professor Rennie Brantz, co-director.
``He told his story to 24 honors students and they were absolutely enthralled.''
The summer institute, in its seventh year, evolved from that program. The Rosenblats have attended every one.
''His presentation is so genuine and important,'' Brantz said. ``We miss him enormously.''
In addition to his wife and brother, Rosenblat is survived by son Avi and daughter-in-law Dina; son Benjamin's widow, Beth, of Gainesville, and four grandchildren.He was buried in Hollywood.

Morris Rosenblat, survivor who taught about Holocaust, dies - 04/02/2008 - MiamiHerald.com