Sol Rosenberg (February 2,
1926–January 30, 2009) was a Jewish survivor
of the German Nazi death camps and concentration camps who became an
industrialist and philanthropist in Monroe
in
northeastern Louisiana
.
After the
German invasion of
Poland of 1939 Rosenberg lived in the
Warsaw Ghetto set up by the German occupiers
of Poland.
The German Nazi regime sent his parents and
two sisters to their deaths in 1942, but Rosenberg was one of the
very few to escape from the death camp at Treblinka
; he returned to Warsaw, where he participated in
the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising. Rosenberg was then sent to the Dachau
concentration camp
, where he was liberated by the Allied Powers after the final overthrow of the
Nazi regime.
In Poland, Rosenberg met his wife, the former Tola Baron (June 22,
1924-January 12, 2006). The couple came to Louisiana in 1949 and
thereafter settled in Monroe to start the steel company from
scratch.
Rosenberg
was involved in community affairs and charitable works, being a
charter founder of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C.
, and the Holocaust Museum Houston
. He was a member of the Monroe Chamber of Commerce and supported the
Booster Club at the University of Louisiana at
Monroe
. In 2006, he was awarded the Kitty DeGree
Lifetime Business Achievement Award. He played
golf at the Bayou Desiard
Country Club in Monroe, where he made a hole in
one at the age of eighty-one.
Rosenberg contributed to youth athletics and the reconstruction of
the Jewish Cemetery in Monroe. His friend Jay Marx, a Jewish member
of the Monroe City Council, characterized Rosenberg's life as "the
American dream. He found his way in a new country and reaped the
benefits of this country... He didn't take for granted anything,
and he shared plenty. I think all of us will certainly regret his
loss but will admire his life.”
"My father was kind of like a
Will
Rogers in reverse; he never met a man who didn't like him,”
said his son, Jackie Rosenberg in an interview with the
Monroe News Star. The
senior Rosenberg remained active in the family's business, Sol's
Pipe and
Steel Co., an international company,
until
cancer struck.
Rosenberg died at his Monroe residence. In addition to his son
Jackie and his wife, Diane, Rosenberg was survived by four other
children, Joe Rosenberg and wife, Pam; Herman Rosenberg, Jeannie
Wermuth and her husband, Gary, and Terri Rosenberg, and twelve
grandchildren. Services were held on February 1, 2009 – one day
before what would have been Rosenberg's 83rd birthday – at the
Reform Judaism synagogue, Temple B'nai Israel, in Monroe.
Interment was at the Jewish Cemetery.
Sol’s Story: A Triumph of the Human Spirit by Richard B.
Chardkoff, a ULM
historian, tells the
story of Rosenberg’s trials and triumphs. His
obituary quotes him, accordingly: "I love the
United States. I’m a citizen. I’m proud to be an American, and I’m
a good American. Nowhere in the whole world did I find happiness. I
find happiness in America."
References
- "Monroe businessman Sol Rosenberg dies", Monroe News
Star, January 30, 2009