Segen family papers

Berta Segen (1911-2004) was born in Borszczów, Poland (now Borshchiv, Ukraine) to Moses and Sabina Silberbusch. Her sister’s written testimony and birth certificate indicate she was born in 1911, but several other documents place birth in 1920 or 1922. Berta often also went by the name Betka.

Moses Segen (1904-1996) was born Moszek Chaim Zegien in Radom, Poland to Lejba and Bina Zegien. His birth certificate indicates he was born in 1904, but his certificate of naturalization places his birth in 1914. His father worked as a merchant, and Moses worked as a shoemaker in Poland before the war.

Moses and Berta married on June 30, 1939 in Borszczów, Poland. After Poland was invaded in September 1939, Moses was separated from Berta. He was in the Radom ghetto from April 1941 to August 1942. From August 1942 to August 1943 he was in a forced labor camp in Radom. His relative, Jacob Krantz, was also in the Radom camps. There is little information on his years from August 1943 to summer 1945. His entire family in Radom was killed.

Berta and her mother were sent to the Borszczów ghetto in September, 1941. In the summer of 1943, Berta and her cousin Frieda Steiner escaped the camp. Berta hid on a farm in Turylcze, Poland until May, 1945. Moses and Berta were reunited in the displaced persons camp in Waldenburg, Germany in the summer of 1945. They remained in the camp until spring 1946 when they were relocated to the I.R.O. Resettlement Camp, Ludwigsburg, Germany near Stuttgart. Their son, Leon, was born in the camp in 1948. In 1949, with sponsorship from Moses’s cousin Jacob Krantz, the Segens emigrated from Germany to the United States on the SS General Taylor. They settled in the Bronx, New York where Moses worked as a merchant and co-owned Senac Drygoods Store in the early 1950s.

Leon Segen (1948-2014) grew up in the Bronx, New York. He attended City College and then taught high school during the Vietnam War. He returned to school at New York University and State University of New York at Stony Brook, and graduated from Yeshiva University in 1980 with a law degree. He resided in Riverdale, New York and was involved in Second Generation Holocaust Survivor organizations as well as the legal profession.