We are grateful to have the opportunity to hear the story of the grandmother of congregant Marnie (Brad) Helfand and the great-grandmother of GCJE students Scarlett and Callie.

Mira Horowitz is a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor. Born in Vilno, Poland, Mira’s entire family was sent to a work camp in 1941 after the Nazis invaded Poland when Mira was just 13 years old. Two years later, Mira escaped the camp, along with a four-year-old child, as the two sole surviving children of a Nazi massacre. They were taken in by a Christian family until the liberation three months later. After the war, Mira moved with her surviving mother to Russia to finish school and attended the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. There she met her husband, one of her teachers, and they had two sons. They left Russia in 1957 and made their way to the United States by way of Poland and Israel, and ultimately landed in the Chicago area in 1959. Mira worked as an engineer well into her 80s. She lives independently in Northbrook today and is the proud grandmother of five and the great-grandmother of seven.