Survivor Encyclopedia

Gail Elad (nee Lederman) was born in Warsaw, Poland on October 10, 1940, six days before the Nazis forced her and her family into the Warsaw Ghetto. The Warsaw Ghetto was a section of Warsaw that the Nazis surrounded with walls and guard stations and where they forced Jews to live in crowded conditions. In addition to the Jews of Warsaw, the Nazis forced tens of thousands of Jews from surrounding communities into the ghetto. At one point, over 400,000 Jews were crammed into an area that was 1.3 square miles. 

Gail spent the first two years of her life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Around the time that the Nazis began the systematic deportation of Warsaw Ghetto Jews to Treblinka, Gail’s father, Isidor, managed to smuggle her out of the Ghetto. He gave her a sleeping pill and hid her in a duffel bag. Gail’s father placed her with a non-Jewish Polish family until the end of World War II. Gail never again saw her mother, who died in a Nazi concentration camp.

After the conclusion of World War II, Gail was reunited with her father. Immediately after the war Gail's father was very involved in saving Jewish children who were left as orphans by the Nazis, and Gail temporarily lived in an orphanage along with these other children. Gail later moved to Germany with her father (who had by then remarried) and her stepmother where they spent a year in a displaced persons camp.

Finally, in approximately 1947, Gail made it to the United States, via Ellis Island. Gail often talked about the excitement she felt when seeing the Statue of Liberty for the very first time from the deck of her ship. In the United States, Gail started a new life. She remembers the excitement of chewing her first piece of bubble gum and also the work she put into practicing her handwriting. Her Polish name was Gabrisha, but in the spirit of her excitement she wanted a name that sounded "American" and chose Gail. Gail grew up in California and earned her teaching degree there. In 1975, Gail, her husband and her kids moved to Israel, settling in Nahariya, before moving to Seattle in 1979.

Gail taught English as a Second Language in the Renton School District to students of all backgrounds and from all parts of the world. "I made a full circle," said Gail who remembered her own challenges in learning English decades earlier. In her 50's, Gail earned a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Washington and also discovered her hidden talent for watercolor painting. Gail passed away in May 2008 at the age of 67 after a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. She left behind a beautiful legacy of tolerance, kindness, strength and courage.

1940-2008

“I had one prisoner who was the valet to the German commander on the Western Front and he gave me some very good information.” - Henry Butler

Henry Butler was born into a tight-knit Jewish family in Germany in 1920. As a kid, he was always athletic. He has good memories of walking to synagogue with his grandfathers.  When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, the Jewish community of his hometown Wurzburg felt the antisemitism increasingly rise to the surface. His father was forced to sell his business in 1937 and the family moved to Frankfurt, Germany.

At the age of 16, Henry was one of the lucky few Jewish people to leave Germany for the United States. He received an affidavit from a relative living in New York. When he arrived, he got a job in a photo lab. His parents made their way to England.

In January 1943, Henry was drafted into the US Army. Because Henry was a native German speaker, he was selected to be trained at the secret Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie in Maryland, known as Fort Ritchie. The “Ritchie Boys” as he and the others were called, were German-speaking immigrants, often Jews who had fled Nazi persecution. They were used primarily for interrogation of German prisoners on the front lines and counter-intelligence in Europe.

Henry was assigned to a team of six, attached to Headquarters Third Army, General Patton’s Army, and they arrived in England in June, shortly after the invasion of Normandy. Henry recalls that the key to questioning German prisoners was to try to gain their trust by offering them a cigarette first.

After the war, Henry was discharged in October of 1945 and went back to New York, where he continued with his job at Brillo, where he had started working before he was drafted. He was transferred to the West Coast, where he met his wife Olga, and settled in Seattle in 1947.

1920-

Geroge Beykovsky and his younger brother Tom grew up on a farm in Czechoslovakia. His father managed the farm that mainly produced tobacco and sugar beets. His mother spent much of her time tending their vegetable and fruit garden as well as raising chickens and geese. 

At harvest time migrants from Hungary came to help harvest the farm’s produce and as a young boy George learned Slovak and Hungarian languages. George remembers many relatives would visit them on the farm. In spring 1939 his father was warned of the political danger in the area for himself and his family.  He made arrangements for passports and visas, and he terminated the lease of the farm.   

In July, the family packed some belongings and traveled by train to Antwerp, Belgium to embark on the ship Aconcagua with a destination to Ecuador, South America.  

Three days after arriving in Ecuador, George had his eighth birthday.  While George was in elementary school, his parents worked on several farms in different locations.  The farms were not near any schools, so he either missed school or was boarded in town with families. Throughout high school, George attended a vocational school. Geroge recalls that he did not do well in school - he was troubled as the only student with white skin and light brown hair. He was known as the gringo rather than by his name.  George was always aware of how different he looked.

In 1952, he applied for entry to the United States and in 1957 he was granted an entry visa. He spent four years in the Air Force, married, had children, and now has seven grandchildren. Only after George became an adult and moved to America, did he become aware that this family was Jewish. 

George spends much of his time expanding the information on his family tree, which now includes over 1200 people.  Many of George’s relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. George has traveled the world to meet his extended family members. He searches through archives and cemeteries finding data his parents decided not to share. 

George lives in the greater Seattle area keeps busy visiting his grandchildren and working as an interpreter. 

1931-