Adam Kahane

Born: July 6, 1922, Jaslo, Poland

Adam Kahane and his family lived in Lodz where his father ran a pharmacy. Adam was five years old when his parents got divorced. After the divorce, Adam lived with his mother and her family in Jaslo, the town where he was born. He visited his father once a year. In 1939, they fled to eastern Poland, hoping to avoid the advancing German troops.

Shortly after they moved to Lvov. Soviet authorities relocated Adam and his cousins to a settlement in the Soviet Union. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Polish citizens were released as part of the agreement between the Soviet and Polish governments. Adam was drafted into the Polish Army, but when he reported for duty, he found out that they did not want any Jewish soldiers. Adam began nursing school in 1942 and graduated with honors in 1945.

Adam's father Jakub had died of a heart attack on the cattle car to the concentration camp Auschwitz. When the war ended Adam went back to Lodz and ran his father's pharmacy. Three years later, Adam moved to the United States, where he studied business at Columbia University and got married.