Irvin Szames, Holocaust survivor and former owner of Bexley Kosher Market, dies at 86
Irvin Szames, a Holocaust survivor and the owner of the now-closed Bexley Kosher Market, died Monday. He was 86.
The Bexley resident, who was born in Poland, spoke openly about his survival story at local synagogues and annual events for Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Hebrew calendar.
As Szames told the Dispatch in 2015, he was forced to grow up quickly after his father, Shlomo, was taken away in the 1940s to fight for the Russian army. He also recalled how a German soldier invaded his home and fatally stabbed and shot his grandmother.
Szames and his family fled to the forest where they met his grandfather and other relatives. Together, they dug a cave to hide in and survived the Holocaust for three years in the woods of Poland and Ukraine. Szames, still a child at the time, stole bread and milk left out by farmers or potatoes, sour cream and cottage cheese from pig troughs.
The family also lived in a ghetto, and it was there that he watched as a German soldier with a rifle promised to kill his mother, refusing her offer of gold jewelry. To save her, he leaped at the man, stabbing him to death with a pitchfork.
After the war, in 1949, he moved to the United States, where his mother had immigrated about two years earlier.
Read more: Holocaust remembrance helps to preserve stories
Szames married his wife, Francine, in 1956 and opened Bexley Kosher Market in 1987, which by 2007 was central Ohio's only completely kosher food market and deli, according to a Dispatch article at the time. It closed in 2008 after he suffered a stroke in 2005 that left him paralyzed on his left side.
"We had everything from soup to steak — anything that a Jewish family would need," he said of the store in 2008. "That store was like a baby to me. I nourished it and made a success of it."
Read more: Bexley Kosher Market to close
Debbi Sugarman, a family friend and co-chair of JewishColumbus' Holocaust Education Committee, said Szames was "a good man" who would forgive the debts of customers in need of kosher food.
"He was a pillar in the Jewish community," she said. "It's a huge loss, not just for the family but to the community and kosher Columbus."
Szames and his wife began the Irv and Francine Szames March of the Living Fund to allow students to travel to Poland and learn the history of the Polish Jews there during the Holocaust, Sugarman said.
Szames was among the survivors who helped build the chapel at Beth Jacob Congregation in Berwick that also serves as a memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Losing Szames and other Holocaust survivors "highlights the importance of keeping these stories alive," Justin Shaw, senior director of community relations at Jewish Columbus, said.
"It’s important we share as many of their stories as possible ... to remind the next generations of the lessons," he said. " It’s something we want to be cognizant of so that we don’t fall into that trap, we recognize the warning signs when they're there, and stop the hate before it begins."
Szames is survived by his wife, Francine Szames; sons, Steven and Brian Szames; daughter, Elizabeth Kalef; brother, Gerald Szames; sisters, Sandy Hackman and Rita Redfern; eight grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and several nieces, nephews and cousins.
Interment took place Tuesday at New Beth Jacob Cemetery.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Irvin Szames: Holocaust survivor, Columbus grocery owner dies at 86
