Abe Weiss papers

Abe Weiss papers 

Abe Weiss (1912-1995) was born in Kołomyja, Poland (Kolomyia, Ukraine) to tailor Selig Nachbar and his wife, Baile Weiss. He was also called Alfred and Adi, he used his mother’s maiden name rather than his father’s last name, and his siblings used both Weiss and Nachbar. He moved to Leipzig in 1929 to work in his brother Salomon’s clothing factory, and he lived with his brother, sister-in-law Ethel (Etti) and niece Beata. His half-brother, Marcus (Mordechai) Birnberg also moved to Leipzig, as did their sister Regina (Rivka). Abe Weiss immigrated to the United States in December 1938, and lived briefly with relatives Mollie and Ben Yuran in New Brunswick, New Jersey and Nathan and Anna Weiss in the Bronx. In 1939, he married Brooklyn-born Mollie Levin (1917-1989), but despite his marriage to an American citizen, he found it necessary to travel to Cuba and reenter the United States under another emigration quota. He became a naturalized citizen in 1943. He worked as a tailor before attending the Fashion Institute of Technology to learn pattern making. He and his wife later moved to Maspeth, Queens. He sold United States war bonds during World War II and Israel bonds afterwards. A lifelong Zionist, he was honored for his bond-selling by the Maspeth Jewish Center and by a meeting with David ben Gurion during Weiss’s first trip to Israel. Abe’s mother died before the Holocaust, and his father, brothers Marcus, Salomon, and Jacob (Koppel), sisters Regina and Rachel, niece Beata, and nephews were all killed in the Holocaust. 

Abe Weiss papers