Sigmund Mandelbaum

Of Blessed Memory 1910 – 2004

Sigmund Mandelbaum lived in Działoszyce, Poland with his highly observant family until, finding Działoszyce too small, he moved to Łódź.At 15, says Sigmund, “My heart told me to learn a trade.” To his family’s embarrassment, he became a painter. In the concentration camps, the skill saved his life. During the war Sigmund became a forced laborer. He escaped from the Płaszów camp and hid on a farm. He departed however, upon learning that farmers sometimes killed families they hid and stole their belongings. Sigmund walked to Krakow, but there he was recaptured. He spent the next three years in concentration camps – Auschwitz, Stuttgart, Stutthof, Buchenwald and finally Theresienstadt, from which he was liberated. Sigmund and his nephew, Jack Mandelbaum, emigrated to the United States in 1946.