Miles Lerman, founder of Holocaust museum

Miles Lerman, 88, who fought the Nazis in his native Poland, became an American immigrant success story, and went on to help found a national museum dedicated to keeping the memory of the Holocaust and its victims and survivors alive, died yesterday at his home in Philadelphia.

Mr. Lerman, a Center City resident, died from complications of aging, according to information provided by his family. No other details were available.

He was a founder and chairman emeritus of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

"He was an extraordinary human being," said Sara Bloomfield, director of the museum. "He fought the Nazis in the forests of Poland. Having survived that, he felt everything was possible in life."

Mr. Lerman, a visionary and a doer, had a "fighting spirit," Bloomfield said.

"He used to say, 'Sara, you are my comrade in arms,' " she said. "Every time I would see an obstacle, Miles would see an opportunity."

Born in Poland, Mr. Lerman was part of a prosperous family that owned flour mills. But the Nazis seized the business, and the family was impoverished overnight. According to a 1993 interview with The Inquirer, Mr. Lerman said his mother, Jachet, fled to L'vov, where he was attending college. After the Nazis seized the town, Mr. Lerman was sent to a slave labor camp. His mother was sent to Belzec, where she met her death.

But the Nazis failed to hold Mr. Lerman. He escaped the labor camp and, for nearly two years, fought the Nazis with other partisans, disrupting German supply lines and hiding Jewish refugees.

"Our job was to raise havoc, to raise hell with them and survive," Mr. Lerman told The Inquirer.

After the war, Mr. Lerman moved to Lodz, where he met his future wife, Rosalie Chris Laks, an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor. They said it was love at first sight, and wed in 1945.

In 1947, Mr. Lerman, his wife and her sister arrived in New York City with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Mr. Lerman spoke several languages, but, at the time, English was not one of them. He got a job as a clerk in a grocery warehouse in Brooklyn.

After the birth of their first child, the Lermans moved to a chicken farm in Vineland, N.J. After 10 years of farming, Mr. Lerman started a home-heating oil business, which grew into a major gas and fuel-oil distributorship. He also invested in real estate. The man who came to the United States almost penniless became a great success.

Mr. Lerman was involved with bringing about the Holocaust Museum from its planning stages. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the governing board of the future museum, he was reappointed by every president since. Not only did he lead the museum's capital campaign, he also successfully negotiated internationally to obtain documents and artifacts for the museum.

Mr. Lerman, the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, also led efforts to build a memorial at Belzec, where about half a million Jews were killed.

His daughter, Jeanette Neubauer, last night recalled an audience her father had with Pope John Paul II and how much it meant to him. Mr. Lerman told the pope about the Belzec project in their native Polish. The pope stroked Lerman's cheek and said the Polish word for good.

"It was like two old souls recognizing a mission accomplished," Neubauer said.

She said her father died surrounded by family. He celebrated his birthday on Sunday with his great-grandchildren and a chocolate cake.

"He was so generous," she said. "Even right up to the end, he was more concerned about everyone else."

In addition to his wife of 62 years and his daughter, Mr. Lerman is survived by a son, David; five grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and a brother.

The funeral will be at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks, 6410 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. Burial will be in Alliance Cemetery in Norma, N.J. Memorial contributions can be made to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, D.C. 20024–2126.

Go to http://go.philly.com/lerman for more on Miles Lerman and more on the Jewish partisans.EndText