Edward Mosberg

Edward Mosberg (January 6, 1926 – September 21, 2022) was a Polish-American Holocaust survivor, educator, and philanthropist. During the Holocaust, he was held by the Nazis from 14 years of age in Kraków Ghetto, Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, Auschwitz concentration camp, Mauthausen concentration camp, and a slave labor camp in Linz, Austria, that was liberated by the US Army in 1945. Nearly all of his family were murdered in the Holocaust.

In 2019, Mosberg was awarded Poland’s highest civilian honor by Polish President Andrzej Duda, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. In 2020, American football player DeSean Jackson, who had made an antisemitic post on social media which he later apologized for, accepted an invitation from the then-94-year-old Mosberg to join him on a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp, to learn about the Holocaust.

Early life

Mosberg was born in Kraków, Poland, to Bronislawa and Ludwig, and was Jewish. His parents owned a department store, and prayed at the Wolf Popper Synagogue. His two sisters were Halina and Karolina.

The Holocaust

In 1939 when Mosberg was 13 years old, Nazi Germany invaded his hometown. In 1940, one year later, the Kraków Ghetto, a Nazi ghetto, was created during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. His immediate family, grandparents, cousins, and aunt were moved into one small apartment there. In 1941, his father was killed in a round-up. In 1942, his grandmother, aunts, and cousins were deported to Belzec concentration camp in German-occupied Poland.

In 1943, the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated, and the remaining Mosberg family was moved to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów just south of Kraków, a Nazi concentration camp operated by the SS, which had been constructed on the grounds of two former Jewish cemeteries. Mosberg witnessed a great number of atrocities committed by SS camp commandant Amon Göth, who was later tried, convicted, and hanged as a war criminal.

In May 1944, Mosberg’s mother and sisters were sent to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz concentration camp in southern Poland. Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration camp, and over a million Jews were killed there between 1940 and 1945. His mother was killed in an Auschwitz gas chamber, and then her body was sent to its crematorium. Mosberg was deported a few days later, first to Auschwitz.

He was then deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where Mosberg performed slave labor. In Mauthausen, prisoners were forced to work in a quarry, pulling boulders as heavy as 110 pounds up 186 steps from morning until night, whipped by Nazi guards.Michael Jones (2015)
''After Hitler; The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe''
/ref> Mosberg said: "If you stopped for a moment, the SS either shot you or pushed you off the cliff to your death." Mosberg was next sent to a slave labor camp in Linz, Austria. The camp was liberated by the U.S. Army on May 5, 1945.

Nearly all of Mosberg's family were murdered during the Holocaust, including his parents and sisters.

Life after the Holocaust

Mosberg was then sent to a hospital in Italy to recover from tuberculosis. In Italy, he reconnected with Cesia (Cecile) Storch, whom he had earlier met in the camps. She had been imprisoned with his sisters.

Cecile (nicknamed Cesia; née Storch) Mosberg, was born in Kraków and had survived Auschwitz. Many of her family members had also been killed. Mosberg and Cecile had both been liberated from German concentration camps by American soldiers.

After liberation, Mosberg returned to Poland for a short amount of time, but encountered strong antisemitism and he and Cecile then moved to Belgium. Mosberg married Cecile in Brussels, Belgium, in 1947.

They then immigrated to the United States in 1951 with their 18-month-old-daughter Beatrice, and lived in East Harlem, New York. Thereafter they had two more children, Louise (in 1953) and Caroline (in 1966), and as of 2016 had seven grandchildren and two grand-grandchildren. Cecile died at 92 years of age in 2020, after the two had been married for 72 years.

In the United States, Mosberg first worked small jobs, and ultimately became a real-estate developer. The family moved to Parsippany, New Jersey, and later lived in Morris Plains, New Jersey

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