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Edward Mosberg, Holocaust survivor, dies at 96

22.09.2022 12:50
Edward Mosberg, a Holocaust survivor and champion of Polish-Israeli dialogue, has died in the United States at the age of 96.
Były więzień Edward Mosberg wraz ze swoją wnuczką Jordaną Karger uczestniczą w 26. Marszu Żywych.
Były więzień Edward Mosberg wraz ze swoją wnuczką Jordaną Karger uczestniczą w 26. Marszu Żywych.PAP/Andrzej Grygiel

Poland’s Consul General in New York Adrian Kubicki wrote on Twitter: “Mr. Edward Mosberg passed away tonight, the most wonderful man I have ever met.”

The consul added: “He was a Holocaust Survivor, noble man and a great Polish patriot, full of energy to the very end of his 96 years of life. My personal mentor. Irreplaceable. Please pray for him and his family.”

Meanwhile, Poland’s state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) wrote in its obituary: “Mr. Edward Mosberg is gone. He was a Holocaust witness who testified the truth, Holocaust survivor who cherished life, and Holocaust educator who taught the world about Shoah. He was a Polish Jew who brought Poles and Jews together.”

Miraculous survival

Born on January 6, 1926, in the southern Polish city of Kraków, Mosberg was a prisoner of Nazi German concentration camps in Płaszów, on the outskirts of Kraków, and in Mauthausen. Most of his family perished in the Holocaust.

He miraculously survived the war, and, after a brief period in Poland, moved to Belgium, where he married, and subsequently to the United States. He became a successful real-estate developer in New Jersey and remained active in Holocaust commemoration until the end of his life.

‘Outstanding services for Polish-Jewish dialogue’

In June 2019, Polish President Andrzej Duda awarded Mosberg with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for his ”outstanding services in the development of Polish-Jewish dialogue and the dissemination of knowledge about the role of Poles in saving Jews.”

Mosberg took part several times in the annual March of the Living at the site of the former Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz.

In 2021, Mosberg came up with a highly critical comment on a New Yorker article in which Masha Gessen blamed Poles for “killing 3 million Jews” and accused the Polish government of whitewashing the country’s history. 

He wrote: “We cannot accuse Poland or its government of collaboration with the Germans because, at that time, there was no government in Poland.  The responsibility for all that happened cannot be attributed to Polish society.”

(mk/pm)