Gender: boy
School:
School #14B
I believe MOSZE HERSZ PARZENCZEWSKI is the best candidate for Mosze Parzenszewski because in the name search data base, this is the ONLY candidate born in the correct range for school 14B. Being born in 1930, and sharing an identical name with the name database, this is certainly the same person. The address also lines up with the school's location, which also reinforces this.
This prisoner card is the key that ties everything together. Even though the birthdates fluctuate between sources from 1930 in the Lodz Ghetto Inhabitants database to different birthdates in 1928 for the Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen records, the original ghetto residence is listed for Moszek in the Mauthausen prisoner record, and the street address is the same -- FRANCISKANSKA 53!!! So, I am highly confident that we have a match. This is extremely exciting since there is a postwar record of a survivor with the same name from Lodz, too. I'll keep looking for more confirmation that he survived.
The postwar survivor list does not provide a birth date to directly connect this person with the student who signed the album, but it holds out hope that he survived. In addition, the USC Shoah Foundation catalogue indicates that he almost certainly survived. I have not yet listened to the testimony, but the catalogue entry aligns well with the data uncovered so far. The name is the same. The birth day and month match up exactly with the Mauthausen prisoner card; though, the year is off by a few years (1931). In addition, it fills in some gaps in his story. It looks like Mosze was deported from the Lodz ghetto to Auschwitz. According to the secondary sources, "The Auschwitz camp authorities selected approximately 200 younger Jews from the Lodz ghetto to attend a bricklaying school (Maurerschule) in the Auschwitz main camp. In November 1944, they were transferred to the Sachsenhausen sub-camp in Lieberose where many of them died. The SS evacuated most of those who survived in February 1945 via the Sachsenhausen main camp to Mauthausen." These details align with information provided in the USC Shoah Foundation catalogue, and I imagine Mosze was probably among this group, but I'll have to watch his testimony to confirm (NOTE: subsequently, I see that he stated in a 2002 interview that he did cement masrony work at Auschwitz). From there, he was likely sent on a death march and liberated at Gunskirchen by the American forces. He was living in Wisconsin, USA when he gave his testimony interview. I'm not sure at this point where Gross Rosen fits into the story (it is listed in the Shoah Foundation catalogue, too).
BTW -- Morris Parzen was interviewed by The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in 2002. In the article, he says that he was ordered into one line at Auschwitz while his parents and sisters were led to the gas chamber. “Lodz was one of the last ghettos to be dissolved in 1944. I was 13 when we were ordered to report to the railroad station and herded into cattle cars for Auschwitz. I worked as a cement mason until the liberation. I was 14 years old at the time and don’t know of any other survivors who were my age,” he recalled.
After Parzen’s liberation, he spent three years in a hospital in Austria, where he was treated for tuberculosis. In 1950, he was sent, alone, to Milwaukee by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).
As of 2009, Morris was listed as a supporter of the Holocaust Education Resource Center in Milwaukee, WI. He is also listed as an executive of Parzan Construction & Repair.