Two Survivors of Violent Antisemitism, Generations Apart

One day in November 1942, Romanian authorities arrived at the farm with a priest, with whom the family had previously had a good relationship. The priest betrayed them, identifying them as Jews to the authorities. The Spitzers’ farm and all the cattle were confiscated. The family had four hours to pack up their belongings. They were allowed to take only one horse and one wagon. They moved into the Socola neighborhood of Iaşi. Nat and his sisters, Sara and Lili, were no longer allowed to attend public school.

In June 1943, Romanian military authorities took Nat’s father and other able-bodied Jewish men from Iaşi to perform forced labor laying new railroad tracks in occupied Ukraine. Iaşi fell to the Soviet Army in August 1944. But Anton would not be liberated and able to return until the spring of 1945. By that time, all of the Spitzers’ extended family, who had remained in Transylvania when it was taken over by Hungary, had been killed. Fany’s father, Eliyahu Aryeh Wax, and 11 of Fanny’s siblings had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Her mother died years earlier in childbirth. Eliyahu later died of starvation in a subcamp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, one month before the camp was evacuated. Only two of Fany’s brothers, Moshe and Lazar Wax, survived until their liberation. Moshe died shortly after on board a ship heading to a sanatorium in Sweden; Lazar later immigrated to the United States.

After the Communists seized power in Romania, the Spitzer children were ridiculed by their Gentile classmates and excluded from Communist student groups. It became evident that continued antisemitism and discrimination provided an unsafe future for the family. In 1947, Anton and Fany decided to leave Romania for British-controlled Palestine. Their application for an exit permit was repeatedly denied. Eventually Fany bribed local officials to secure passage to Israel. The Spitzer family left Romania in March 1950 on board a cargo ship called the Transylvania. They arrived in the port of Haifa in April, just before Passover of that year.

While in Israel, Nat served for three years in the Israeli army. In 1961, he moved to the United States. In 1969, he started his own business. He married Merryl Rich of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1970. They have five children and 12 grandchildren. They live in Maryland, and Nat is a volunteer with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Noa has reached thousands through international exhibitions, an interview in the 2025 Emmy Award–winning documentary, We Will Dance Again, and speaking engagements. Last fall, she spoke at an October 7 commemoration held by the Israeli mission to the United Nations at UN headquarters in New York.

Having lived through an unfathomable tragedy, she courageously recounts the moments that changed her life—the chaos and the impossible choices she and others were forced to make under fire. Focusing on rebuilding, Noa seeks to inspire others with her search for meaning and to prompt deeper conversation in an effort to make sense of what happened.

Photo: Tomer Alter

He has been affiliated with the Museum for over ten years, leading tours of the Museum's Permanent Exhibition as well as its special exhibitions, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity and Americans and the Holocaust. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Final Frontier and the Final Solution: How Hitler's Quest to Conquer the World Put Man on the Moon. His research focuses on the intersection of science and technology with the Holocaust, especially aviation and spaceflight, as well as an exploration of responses to the Holocaust by playwrights and other artists. Photo: Pam Risdon of Risdon Photography