Marsha and Robert Kreuzman papers

Marsha Kreuzman (1923-2018) was born Maria Grünberg on 18 May 1923 in Krakow, Poland to Ignac (1894-1943) and Roza (née Wohlfeiler, d. 1940?) Grünberg. She had one brother, Stephan (d. 1944?). Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Marsha and her family were deported to the Krakow Ghetto. Her mother perished either in the Majdanek concentration camp in 1940 or the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942. Marsha, her father, and her brother, Stephan, were sent to the forced-labor camp at Plaszów, on the outskirts of Krakow. Her father was found hiding in a ditch on Yom Kippur, 1943 and he, along with several other prisoners, were lined up and shot to death. On 13 May 1944, Stephan was determined unable to work and was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he perished. In January, 1945, Marsha was marched to Auschwitz (five days, four nights) and later sent to Bergen-Belsen, Flossenbürg, and ultimately the Mathausen concentration camp. She was liberated by the 11th Armored Division of the U.S. Army on 5 May 1945. A soldier, Joseph Barbella, found her near the crematorium and carried her to a field hospital.

Following the war, Marsha reconnected with Robert Kreuzman in a DP camp. They likely met in the Krakow ghetto. Robert Kreuzman (born Abraham Kreuzman (1919-2006, born in Lowicz, Poland) survived the Krakow ghetto, Plaszów, Mauthausen, and Ebensee. His sister Mary also survived the war. Marsha previously trained to be a nurse, and worked in several DP camps after the war. She worked at Camp Bindermichl in Linz, Austria from 1946-1947 and then went to England to further her nurse’s training. Robert immigrated to the United States in 1951 and settled in Georgia. Marsha had been trying to immigrate to the U.S. since 1948, and with the assistance of Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, she arrived in in May 1952. She and Robert married in Atlanta the same year. The moved to New Jersey in 1954 and later lived in Livingston. Marsha worked as a nurse and Robert was a house painter.

In 2013, Marsha Kreuzman had a reunion with Joseph Barbella, the soldier who brought her to the hospital after she was liberated at Mauthausen.