Salsitz, Norman 1920-2006

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Salsitz, Norman 1920-2006

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born May 6, 1920, in Kolbuszowa, Poland; died of pneumonia, October 11, 2006, in Boston, MA. Photographer, construction worker, and author. Salsitz was best known for his book about his World War II experiences as a Jew pretending to be a Christian and fighting in the Polish underground. Salsitz was born to a Jewish family with nine children, and his hometown was invaded by the Nazis in 1941. All of his family members were killed in the Holocaust, except for one brother. Salsitz, whose birth name was Naftali Saleschutz, was taken prisoner by the Germans. He was put in a slave labor battalion, but managed to escape. Joining the Polish underground, he successfully posed as a Christian with the help of a forged baptismal certificate that a priest gave him. Even among the anti-Nazi fighters, Salsitz could not admit he was Jewish because many Poles were just as anti-Semitic as the Nazis. He finally had to blow his cover by shooting at members of his squad when they intended to attack a Jewish family. Fleeing to Russia, he joined Soviet forces. When the Russian Army invaded Krakow, Salsitz met the woman who would become his wife. Amalie Patranker was also a Jew posing as a Christian. She had managed to gain the trust of the Germans and was working for a construction company in the Polish capital. She was pretending to cooperate with orders to blow up buildings in Krakow when Salsitz arrived to kill her. Revealing their true selves to each other, they fell in love and married in 1947. Immigrating to the United States, the Salsitzes lived in Brooklyn. They then moved to New Jersey in 1956, where Salsitz worked in construction; he would later pursue writing and photography. The Salsitzes described their remarkable and harrowing wartime experiences in Against All Odds: A Tale of Two Survivors (1990) and In a World Gone Mad: A Heroic Story of Love, Faith, and Survival (2001). Salsitz was also coauthor of A Jewish Boyhood in Poland: Remembering Kolbuszowa (1992) and Three Homelands: Memories of a Jewish Life in Poland, America, and Israel (2002). Salsitz returned to his boyhood home only once, in 2003, during production of a documentary about his life.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

BOOKS

Salsitz, Norman, and Amalie Petranker Salsitz, Against All Odds: A Tale of Two Survivors, Holocaust Library (New York, NY), 1990.

Salsitz, Norman, Amalie Petranker Salsitz, and Amy Hill Hearth, In a World Gone Mad: A Heroic Story of Love, Faith, and Survival, Abingdon Press (Nashville, TN), 2001.

Salsitz, Norman, and Richard Skolnik, A Jewish Boyhood in Poland: Remembering Kolbuszowa, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 1992.

Salsitz, Norman, and Stanley Kaish, Three Homelands: Memories of a Jewish Life in Poland, America, and Israel, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2002.