Esther Knobel Tuzman, 87, Holocaust survivor

Esther Knobel Tuzman, 87, of Jenkintown, a Holocaust survivor, died yesterday at Sunrise of Abington of kidney failure.

A native of Krasnystaw, Poland, Mrs. Tuzman was a teenager when Germany invaded her country. Her widowed mother, Esther, told her to go into hiding from the Nazis, who were killing Jews or sending them to concentration camps. Her mother told her to keep her faith in God, and made her promise that she would do everything she could to save her life.

Mrs. Tuzman, who had red hair and spoke Polish, was sheltered by a Christian family for a time. She later told her daughter Ani that she was sometimes forced to hide beneath the floorboards in the barn or in the woods.

After the Russians ousted the Germans from Poland in 1944, Mrs. Tuzman met her future husband, Arnold, a quartermaster in the Polish army under Russian command. She tried to sell him boot polish and discovered that he also was a Jew. They married in 1945, and immigrated to the United States in 1947.

They lived in New York City for three years before moving to Vineland, N.J., where other Jews had formed agriculture collectives inspired by the Kibbutz movement in Israel. The couple raised chickens in Vineland for 10 years before buying a window-cleaning business in Jenkintown.

In the late 1960s, they purchased the Emerson Apartments in Northeast Philadelphia. Their son, Marty, eventually took over the window-cleaning business, and the Tuzmans sold the apartment building four years ago.

Mrs. Tuzman was delighted that she and her husband prospered enough to send her children to college and have a comfortable life, their daughter said. She and her husband enjoyed travel, spending winters in Pompano Beach, Fla. They also played golf and bridge and were members of Melrose Country Club and Ashbourne Country Club in Melrose Park.

Except for a distant cousin, all of Mrs. Tuzman's relatives died in the Holocaust. She never forgot her roots, her daughter said, and believed in the Jewish obligation of

tzedakah

to give to the less fortunate.

She was an active supporter of many Jewish organizations, including the Jewish Poultry Farmers' Association, Hadassah, Boys Town Jerusalem, Ben Gurion University, and the Holocaust Museum of Washington.

Locally, she was active with the Holocaust Survivors Association of Philadelphia and Congregation Adath Jeshurun in Elkins Park.

Though Mrs. Tuzman did not speak publicly about her Holocaust experiences, her remembrances were recorded by her daughter several years ago.

In addition to her husband, daughter and son, Mrs. Tuzman is survived by another daughter, Rochelle Sauber, and nine grandchildren.

A funeral will be at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks Memorial Chapel, 6410 N. Broad St. Burial will be in Shalom Memorial Park in Huntingdon Valley.

Memorial donations may be made to the Esther Tuzman-Gratz College Holocaust Education Fund, 7605 Old York Rd., Melrose Park, Pa. 19027.