Maria Mirsen | Survived Nazis, 88

Maria Kunowski Mirsen, 88, of Westmont, a retired X-ray technician and a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Jan. 9 at her home.

Mrs. Mirsen grew up in a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland. After the German invasion, the Nazis created a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw and life became increasingly dangerous for Jews.  In 1942, Mrs. Mirsen's  father arranged for false identity papers from the Polish Socialist Party for her and her mother, and they were smuggled out of the ghetto. He later disappeared, and the family assumes he died in a concentration camp, said Mrs. Mirsen's son, Thomas.

While living under a false name in Warsaw, Mrs. Mirsen distributed money to Jews in hiding and participated in the uprising against the Nazis in 1944. She had been a medical student in France before the war and nursed the injured, her son said.

In 1947, she and her mother immigrated to Argentina, where she met her husband, Stefan Mirsen, also a Jewish refugee. The couple came to the United States in 1965 and settled in the Forest Hills section of New York City.

Mrs. Mirsen was an X-ray technician in Argentina and later at Queens General Hospital until retiring in 1984.

She rarely spoke about her war experiences, her son said, but wrote a memoir and narrated several tapes for a Brown University oral history project.

She and her husband enjoyed travel and returned several times to Argentina. They also went to Poland before he died in 1982. Mrs. Mirsen moved to Westmont nine years ago.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Mirsen is survived by a daughter, Cris Voss; four grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.

A funeral will be at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow at Platt Memorial Chapel, 201 Berlin Rd., Cherry Hill. Friends may call at 1:45.