Morris Rosen was born Moniek Rozen on November 10, 1922 in Częstochowa, Poland to traditionally Jewish Orthodox parents. He lived with his five sisters and three brothers in Dąbrowa Górnicza, located in southern Poland. Rosen was seventeen years old when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939 during World War II. He attempted to run away, but was caught by advancing German troops and returned to Dąbrowa. Life became increasingly difficult for the community in Morris’s hometown. As opportunities for employment decreased, labor grew more intensive. Morris kept himself busy by building scaffolding for the town square where German troops used to hang Polish rebels. Morris had his last encounter with his parents in Dąbrowa before he was sent to Gruenberg in September 1943. The following year, German troops moved him to Kretschamberg, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp network in southwestern Poland. In March 1945, Morris was forced to take part in the death march with hundreds of other prisoners from Kretschamberg to Buchenwald, near Weimar, Germany. He had arrived at Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia one day before Soviet troops took over the concentration camp, liberating its prisoners. Morris immigrated to the United States in 1949.
Morris passed away on December 12, 2020 at the age of 98.
Goucher College Library, 1021 Dulaney Valley Road, Baltimore, MD 21204 • 410-337-6360 • © 2013-2017 • 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.