Hornstein family collection

Irving Hornstein (1937-2016) was born Issac Hornstein on 9 November 1937 Przemyśl, Poland to Chiel and Otylia Hornstein. Otylia Hornstein (1908-1954) was born Otylia Geitzholz. She had several siblings including Aron Geitzholz, Sonia Geitzholz, and Hershel Geitzholz. After the start of World War II, Przemyśl was split and occupied by both Germany and Russia. By 1942 the Hornsteins were forced from Przemyśl and sent by the Soviet Red Army to labor camps in Siberia, Turkestan, and Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Irving’s father and several of Otylia’s siblings perished from typhus in the camps.

After the war, Irving and his mother went to Wrocław, Poland. Otylia’s brother Aron Geitzholz immigrated to Cuba before the war, and she and her son immigrated there with his help in 1948. They visited Otylia’s cousin Malcha Wolkenfeld in the United States in 1950. During the trip Otylia reconnected with Paul Feldstein, who she knew before the war, and they married 5 months later, and she remained in the U.S. Irving was briefly deported to Canada for overstaying his visa. He attended Long Island University on a soccer scholarship. He later graduated from Temple Dental School in 1965. Irving served with the United States Army Dental Corps from 1965-1968, and was discharged with the rank of captain. He met Diane Geller in 1968 and they married six months later. He worked as a dentist and the couple had three daughters.