In Honor of Rosalie Steinweis

This November 25th, we're celebrating Rosalie's 100th birthday. Rosalie is a Holocaust survivor, matriarch, friend, and inspiration. Although she’s a full century young, her mind remains as sharp, and her will as strong, as ever. Her life story continues to be one of family, survival, and love.

Rosalie has inspired one of her granddaughters, Gayle, to become a founding member and leader of 3GNY, encouraging other 3Gs to learn and share their family stories, promoting Holocaust education, and building and nurturing the community. 3GNY is an educational non-profit organization for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. 3GNY’s WEDU (We Educate) initiative empowers grandchildren of survivors to learn and compellingly share their family's Holocaust experiences with students and diverse communities. 3GNY also raises awareness about human rights issues and genocide – past and present.

Rosalie’s Story

Rosalie Weisbrot was born on November 25, 1922 in Kielce, Poland, and was the oldest of five siblings. She was several weeks short of her 17th birthday when Germany invaded Poland and the family was forced to move multiple times. In May 1942, Rosalie, her sister Regina, and brother Harold were deported to labor camps. From May 1942 to May 1945, Rosalie and Regina worked as forced laborers in a thread-manufacturing factory in Parschnitz, in the German-occupied Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. They survived the war there, while Harold survived his own experiences in several labor camps. The remaining siblings and both parents were murdered in the Holocaust.

After their liberation in Parschnitz by the Soviet Army in May 1945, Rosalie and Regina made their way back home where she met her husband, David Steinweis, who was also a survivor. In the early fall of 1945, Rosalie and David travelled together to Germany to the Displaced Persons camp at Deggendorf. They married in Deggendorf on October 3, 1945. Their first child, Saul (named after Rosalie’s father) was born in Deggendorf in 1947. Rosalie’s family was sponsored for immigration to the United States by relatives. Rosalie, David, and Saul sailed from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York in November 1947 on the SS Ernie Pyle. The family lived in the Bronx until 1952 and then moved to Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. David found a job as a garment worker in Manhattan before opening a dry cleaning and alteration business with his brothers who were also survivors. Rosalie and David’s second son, Alan, was born in 1957.

In 1961 the family purchased its first home on East 55th Street in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. During the 1960’s and early 1970’s, David and Rosalie operated their own dry cleaning and alteration businesses in Brooklyn. The family would spend part of each summer in the Catskill mountains, where Rosalie and David enjoyed socializing and playing cards with family and friends, most of whom were fellow Holocaust survivors. They sold their business in 1973 and then in 1976 moved to Florida, initially to Eastern Shores, and then in 1978 bought an apartment in Winston Towers in Sunny Isles Beach, where Rosalie still lives.

Rosalie and David would travel north every summer to stay in Stony Brook, at the home of son Saul, daughter-in-law Irva, and grandchildren Gayle and Melanie. David passed away in 1996. Rosalie continued traveling up to New York on her own until 2016, and now she enjoys visits from family and friends. In 2014 and 2017, she was blessed with two beautiful great-granddaughters, Gayle and her husband Jason’s children, Brooke and Fara. There is nothing sweeter in this world than seeing Rosalie together with her great-grandchildren.