I was jealous when somebody else can die and I can't die.

— Salvator Moshe

Biography

Salvator Moshe was born in Salonika, Greece, on September 10, 1915. His family traced its roots back to the Spanish Inquisition, when Greece opened its borders to Jewish exiles. Salvator graduated from high school in 1932. He worked in France for four years and returned home in 1936.

The German army occupied Salonika in 1940. Jewish residents lived in relative safety until deportations began early in 1943. Salvator's entire family was transported to Auschwitz, where all but he and his brother-in-law perished.

In August 1943, Salvator and his brother-in-law joined a transport of Greek Jews sent to clear debris from the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto. After laboring for nearly a year, they were force-marched to Dachau, and then to a forced labor camp in a neighboring forest. As the war reached its last days, Nazis transported the prisoners by train for eventual massacre in the Austrian Tirol, but they were liberated en route by the U.S. Army near Seeshaupt, Germany.

Salvator and his brother-in-law ended up in a displaced persons camp at Feldafing, Germany, and soon settled in Weilheim. In 1948, Salvator's brother-in-law immigrated to Israel. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) arranged for Salvator to come to the United States in April 1949. After a short stay in New York, he was sent to Milwaukee where, through efforts of the Jewish Vocational Service, he was hired by the Greenbaum Tannery. For the next 30 years, he was a tannery worker and retired in 1980. Salvator married Milwaukee native Thelma Seiden in March 1950. They raised three children. Salvator died in 1993.

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