Holocaust Survivor Oral Histories

This interview is unavailable.

Adela Gruzin was born on December 15, 1933 in Zamość, Poland. In 1939, her family was warned by a friend, a German soldier, of the upcoming conflict, and they left for the Soviet Union to an area known today as Ukraine. Adela’s family was captured by the Soviets and everyone but her three oldest brothers were sent to Siberia. In 1939, after Adela and her family left Zamość, the city was bombed. From 1941 to 1942, Adela and her family lived with other Jewish families in a Soviet village. Soviets then moved Adela and her family to Uzbekistan in 1943, where they stayed until the end of the war in 1945.

Following liberation, Adela and her siblings smuggled themselves back to Poland. They lived in Berlin with their parents from 1945 to 1948 before relocating to Lechfeld, a displaced persons camp in Germany. Adela then moved to Augsburg, Germany, to attend nursing school. She worked at an immigration office shortly after receiving her graduate certificate. Between 1950 to 1952, Adela and her family were moved to Föhrenwald, another displaced persons camp where she met her future husband, Israel Gruzin, also a Holocaust survivor. They married on March 24, 1953 and had their first child a year later. They emigrated to the United States in 1955 and gave birth to two more children. They have lived in Baltimore ever since.