Rose Lauenger
Chaya Rukhel Kirsch, known as Rosa (and, later, Rose), was born on July 10, 1918 in Glogów Malopolski near Rzeszów, the largest city in southeastern Poland. Her parents, Avraham Berish and Sima Teitelbaum Kirsch, were Belzer Chasidim. Berish was a rabbi, and spent much of his time teaching and learning, while Sima supported the family as a sheitel macher (Yiddish for wig maker) and with other work in the Jewish community. Rosa was the second of three children, between older brother Aron and younger sister Chana (Anna).
In the early 1920s, the family moved to Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. But in October 1938, as part of the so-called Polenaktion (Polish Action), the Kirsches were among the thousands of Jews with Polish citizenship who were forcibly deported back to Poland. At the train station, Rosa made a remark to a Nazi soldier and in return received a smack to the side of her face that resulted in an ear injury.
Rosa and her family tried to settle in Krakow, but conditions were so dire that Rosa, who was 20 at that point, made attempts to leave the country. She was able to secure a visa to work as a maid in Manchester, England, where her brother Aron had previously made his way. He had avoided deportation to Poland by speeding a motorbike across the German-Belgian border at Aachen and evading the bullets of Nazi border guards. Rosa traveled alone to the port at Danzig (now Gdańsk), and sailed to Liverpool. The English she had learned in school was not nearly as fluent as she thought, and she spent her first night in England crying on a bench near the harbor.
Rosa soon arrived in Manchester, and found housing at a Jewish boarding house. There, she met Max Lauenger, who knew her brother Aron from an agricultural school in Leipzig where they had both tried unsuccessfully to qualify for visas to Palestine. Rosa and Max were married in October 1942, at a wedding hosted by the owner of the factory where she worked. Their daughter Ruth was born in December 1943.
In August 1947, Max, Rose, and Ruth obtained U.S. immigration visas and departed for New York. Rose and Max lived in Washington Heights until 1967, then in Queens, and then in Long Beach, Long Island. Rose passed away in 1994 and Max in 1995.
Recently available documents state that Rose’s parents were deported to the Nowy Sacz ghetto (Neu Sandez in German or Tsanz in Yiddish). While the details of their ultimate fates, and that of her sister Chana are unknown, the ghetto was liquidated in August 1942 with the inhabitants sent to the Belzec death camp.
Rose and Max had two grandchildren, including Heschel Holocaust Commemoration Committee member Barry Langman, the parent of Heschel student Elliott Langman.
