Henry Fenichel, Born April 1938 - The Hague, Netherlands

Henry’s father, Moritz, was born in Tarnow, Poland in 1903. According to Henry’s mother, Pessel, Moritz was an accomplished pianist who could come home from work and play for hours. He owned a pet and flower shop with a partner in the city of Utrecht, which was about an hour by train from where the family lived in The Hague. Being very young, Henry does not remember much about his father, but does have a memory of his father taking him to the zoo.

After the German Army occupied Holland, Moritz was rounded up and deported to Mauthausen on July 26, 1942. Later, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he was murdered on November 8, 1942. Henry and his mother, Pessel, went into hiding. In 1943, Henry and his mother’s Jewish identities were discovered, and they were arrested in their hiding place and sent to Westerbork, one of two transit camps in the Netherlands. Later, they were sent to Bergen-Belsen, but were lucky to be saved by being on an exchange transfer to British mandate Palestine on June 30, 1944.

Henry and his mother immigrated to the United States in 1951, where he met his wife, Diana. They had two daughters and moved to Cincinnati in 1965, where Henry was a professor of physics at the University of Cincinnati for 40 years.

NOTE: Viewing options—watch the full 30-minute candle lighting ceremony, or view the individual survivors’ stories like this video, separately.