Holocaust survivors have volunteered at the Museum on a regular basis across the institution—engaging with visitors, sharing their personal histories, serving as tour guides, translating historic materials, and more, since the Museum opened. Their presence has been an invaluable asset, and their contributions vital to the Museum’s mission.
Learn about volunteering at the Museum.
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Helen Luksenburg
Born: April 4, 1926, Sosnowiec, Poland Died: July 22, 2021, Silver Spring, MDHelen Luksenburg was born Hinda Chilewicz on April 4, 1926 in Sosnowiec, Poland. Her father, Chaim, owned a textile mill and her mother, Chana, tended to the house and children. Helen was the eldest of three children in a comfortable middle-class family and their town boasted a blossoming Jewish community complete with several religious schools and a Jewish hospital.
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Welek Luksenburg
Born: February 1, 1923, Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland Died: January 29, 2014Welek grew up in Dabrowa Gornicza, an industrial town in western Poland. His father, Simcha, was a wholesale meat merchant and his mother, Rozalia, served as president of the local chapter of the Women’s International Zionist Organization. The Luksenburgs were among the several thousand Jews who lived in Dabrowa Gornicza.
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Emanuel “Manny” Mandel
Born: May 8, 1936, Riga, LatviaEmanuel “Manny" Mandel was born to Yehudah and Ella Mandel, a religious Jewish family, in the port city of Riga, Latvia on May 8, 1936. Shortly after Manny’s birth, Yehudah accepted a post as one of the four chief cantors in Budapest, and the family returned to Hungary, where they had lived before 1933. Manny’s father was based at the renowned Rumbach Street synagogue. At the time Budapest was an important Jewish center in Europe.
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Michel Margosis
Born: September 2, 1928, Brussels, Belgium Died: March 27, 2020, Springfield, VAWhen Belgium was attacked by Germany in May 1940, and Brussels was bombed, the Margosis family fled. Michel’s father had already known pogroms and persecution during the Russian Revolution when he was ‘interned’ in Siberia in the 1920s.
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Harry Markowicz
Born: August 9, 1937, Berlin, Germany Died: September 15, 2020, Silver Spring, MDHarry Markowicz was born on August 9, 1937 in Berlin, Germany to Max and Marja Markowicz. His parents had emigrated from Poland shortly after World War I. Max owned a fur business, and Marja managed their Jewish household while raising Harry and his older siblings, Rosa and Manfred.
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Margit Morawetz Meissner
Born: February 26, 1922, Innsbruck, Austria Died: July 8, 2019, Bethesda, MDMargit was born on February 26, 1922, in Innsbruck, Austria. Her father, Gottlieb Morawetz, was a banker from an observant Jewish family that originally came from the region of Bohemia (today in the Czech Republic). Margit’s mother, Lilly, was from a family of assimilated Viennese Jews. Both of her parents were well-educated, and Margit and her older brothers Felix, Paul and Bruno grew up speaking Czech, French, English and German. When Margit was an infant, her father took a job in Prague, and the family moved to the busy metropolis.
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Julius Menn
Born: February 20, 1929, Free City of Danzig Died: December 2018, Amherst, MAJulius enrolled in a Polish school in Warsaw where he was taunted by the other students for being Jewish. The Menn family stayed in Poland with the hope of returning to Tel Aviv.
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Leon Merrick
Born: January 8, 1926, Zgierz, Poland Died: November 16, 2020, Silver Spring, MDLeon was the oldest of two boys born to a Jewish family in Zgierz, Poland. In 1939, after Germany invaded Poland, Leon’s family left Zgierz for Lodz. They were forced into the Lodz ghetto in 1940.
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Nina Merrick
Born: May 18, 1929, Rokitno, Poland Died: May 25, 2019, Silver Spring, MDNina was born to a Jewish family in the Polish town of Rokitno. She was the youngest of three siblings. Her father was a builder, and Nina attended the Beth Sefer Tarbut.
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Bella (Berger) Mischkinsky
Born: September 9, 1922, Lodz, Poland Died: June 22, 2013, Clearwater Beach, FloridaBella was born in Lodz, Poland. At the age of sixteen, she was separated from her family and ended up in the Oszmiany ghetto, from which she later escaped. Bella made her way to the ghetto in Vilna and eventually was interned in the Kaiserwald concentration camp, where she met and married her husband. She was liberated in April 1945, after surviving a number of other concentration and slave labor camps. In 1946, Bella immigrated to the United States.
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