Chaim Zielinski
Przedecz, Poland
SURVIVOR! Born in 1899 in Przedecz, Poland, my father was one of seven siblings. Four survived the Shoah. He married his first wife Esther (my Hebrew name) and had seven children. They all perished in the Holocaust. He was in multiple camps, including Auschwitz.
He met my mother Pepi Drucker Zielinski in an Austrian DP camp and they married in 1947. They came to the United States as refugees in December 1949. With no family in the U.S., HIAS placed them in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I was born in 1952.
My father had a new family! More sadness as my mother died when I was 6 years old, but he continued on and raised me. He passed in 1979 after he saw me graduate from law school. How to continue with life after such experiences? Survive!