Biography
Adam Kahane is the son of Giza Menase and Jakub Kahane. He was born July 6, 1922 in Jaslo, Poland. and lived with his parents in Lodz until their divorce when he was five. After the divorce, Adam lived with his mother and her family in Jaslo, Poland and visited Jakub, who ran a pharmacy in Lodz, once a year. In early September 1939, Adam and his family fled to an estate owned by a family friend in Gliniany, in eastern Poland, to avoid approaching German troops. A few weeks later they moved to Lvov. In June 1940, Adam, Giza, and Inek (Adam's cousin) were transported to Nazary, a barrack settlement, by Soviet authorities as part of the relocation policy to the interior of the Soviet Union, where they were forced to fell trees. After, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, all Polish citizens were released in accordance with an agreement between the Soviet government and the Polish government in exile. Adam, Giza and Inek traveled to Kazakhstan. Adam was drafted into the Polish Army but was sent home after he reported for duty since they did not want to accept Jews. In September 1942, Adam began nursing school in Shymkent (Chimkent) and graduated from there with honors in 1945. After the war, Adam returned to Lodz to run his father's pharmacy. Jakub died of a heart attack on the cattle train to Auschwitz. In 1948, after a year in Paris, Adam immigrated to the United States to study business at Columbia University. He married Gertrude Lass in 1952.
