Elizabeth Bleiman, one of the region’s oldest Holocaust survivors, has died at 104
She came to the United States in 1949 after enduring separation, physical abuse, starvation, and other atrocities during the Holocaust in Hungary and Poland.
Elizabeth Bleiman, 104, of Philadelphia, homemaker, wife, mother, grandmother, immigrant, volunteer, and one of the region’s oldest Holocaust survivors, died Monday, May 4, of age-associated decline at her home in the Northeast.
Born in Ófehértó, Hungary, Mrs. Bleiman came to the United States in 1949 after enduring separation, physical abuse, starvation, and other atrocities during the Holocaust in Hungary and Poland. In 1944 and 1945, at 23, she was separated from her father, stepmother, older brother, and younger sister, and brutalized in the Auschwitz, Stutthof, and Praust Nazi concentration camps in Poland.
She was forced on a two-month march to another location in Poland as liberators moved closer, and she battled black typhus for weeks after being freed by Russian soldiers in 1945. Her father and stepmother were killed at Auschwitz, and her brother and sister survived in Hungary and Poland.
To reach Lakewood, N.J., in 1949, Mrs. Bleiman returned to Hungary, entered a displaced persons camp in Germany, and finally sailed to America on a U.S. military ship.
She met Motel Bleiman, a Lithuanian teacher, at the camp in Germany, and they married in 1947. They had a daughter, Hannah, in 1948, and a son, Jack, in Philadelphia in 1956.
After a few months in New Jersey, Mrs. Bleiman followed an aunt to Philadelphia and lived in Strawberry Mansion, Mount Airy, Melrose Park Gardens, and the Northeast. Over 75 years, she handled the family finances, doled out much of the parental guidance, and worked as a cottage parent for a group home, a bookkeeper and assistant in a Jewish bookstore, and at a cousin’s South Jersey produce store in the summer.
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She also volunteered at Temple Beth Ami and was active with Jewish Family and Children’s Service and other groups. If something had to get done, her family said, she did it.
“She was the driving force behind any kind of change,” her daughter said.
Mrs. Bleiman was a lifelong learner and a frequent visitor to local libraries, her family said in a tribute. She became proficient on the internet and kept up with events online in Hungary and Israel.
She returned to Hungary a few times and told her family she regretted never traveling to Israel. She said she would never return to Germany.
In 1981, Mrs. Bleiman gave a lengthy oral history interview to Gratz College officials about the horrors she experienced during World War II. In 2023, she did a Zoom interview with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In 2023, her photo appeared in The Inquirer as she lit candles at a Holocaust Survivors Day event. In 2024, she was featured at a survivors symposium for the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania. For years, she participated in the Holocaust survivor support program by the Jewish Family and Children’s Service.
In 2022, Carly Bruski, an assistant director at the Jewish Federations of North America, told the Jewish Exponent: “She’s probably one of the most positive people I have ever met, survivor or not.”
Mrs. Bleiman drove a car into her 90s, balanced her checkbook at 101, and lived pretty much on her own until last year. “Elizabeth’s light was undeniable,“ said her granddaughter Marjorie Fishman. “When family members ended their phone calls with ‘I love you,’ she responded without hesitation ‘I love you more.’”
Elizabeth Zuckermann was born July 10, 1921. Her mother died when she was 5.
She took business classes after high school in Hungary. But everything was upended when the Germans invaded.
Everyone said Mrs. Bleiman spoke her mind. She was a good listener, too, they said, and she became especially animated when she slipped into her native Hungarian. She liked to say: “So what’s the good news?”
She wore silk scarves, a pillbox hat, and a bird cage veil on special occasions. She hosted elaborate homemade holiday meals, sang happy birthday to her grandchildren over the phone, and saved her favorite newspaper articles in a scrapbook.
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She and her husband spent family vacations in Bradley Beach and enjoyed strolls on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. She cared for him as his health failed, and he died in 1999.
“She brought joy to my life when I was low and was a fierce advocate for my confidence in myself,” said her granddaughter Joan Shavit.
Her daughter said: ”My mother was a kind, caring individual who showed genuine concern for others.”
In addition to her children, Mrs. Bleiman is survived by three grandchildren and other relatives. Her brother and sister died earlier.
Services were held earlier.
Donations in her name may be made to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, D.C. 20024; Hadassah, 40 Wall St., N.Y., N.Y., 10005; and Temple Beth Ami, 9201 Old Bustleton Ave., Philadelphia Pa. 19115.
