Mark Solarz

was born in Skalbmiersz, Poland. In 1941, his family was forced into the Krakow Ghetto. Mark was moved between three different forced labor camps until the Soviets advanced into Poland. Upon the Soviet advancement, Mark was sent to Buchenwald where he remained from January 1945-April 11, 1945; when the American Army liberated the camp. Mark arrived in Israel in 1947, where he lived for 15 years. In 1959, he arrived in America and joined his brother in Buffalo.

Mark Solarz’s Biography

Mark Solarz was born Moniek Solarz in Skalbmiersz, Poland on April 4, 1929. His parents were Orthodox Jews who had seven children including Mark. His parents owned a small textile store that was taken from them in 1941 by the Nazis.

Mark and his family were forced to leave their home and were taken to the Krakow Ghetto which was one of the larger ones set up in Poland. Most of Mark’s family were sent to concentration camps shortly after arriving at the ghetto except for himself, his brother Max and his sister Soshanna. These three were also the only ones in Mark’s family to survive the Holocaust. Mark and his brother Max were forced into slave labor and laid railroad tracks that spanned the space between Germany and Russia. After the tracks were laid he was sent to Sharzysko, Poland and worked in the Kamieni Munitions Factory from November 1943 until August 1944. He was then sent to a steel plant in Zal Czenstochau, Poland and worked there until January 1945. It was at this time that he was sent to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, just outside Weimar, Germany. He stayed there for the remainder of the war until the camp was finally liberated by American troops on April 11, 1945.

After the war, Mark was sent to a small town just outside Paris until he was able to book passage to Israel, where he lived for fifteen years. He served in the military there. It was also here where he met his wife Dvorah. In 1959 he moved to Buffalo, New York where he finally reunited with his brother. Dvorah followed him in 1961 and it was that year they got married. He worked in a collision shop until 1962 when he became a wholesale used car salesman. Mark and Dvorah have two children, Pamela and Ronald.

 

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