Community mourns Holocaust survivor

Erwin Froman was remembered as a pillar of the Jewish community. He died at the age of 91.

Erwin Froman, Lorain County’s last Holocaust survivor and a pillar of the Jewish community of the Lorain area, has died. He was 91.

After surviving Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War II, Froman arrived in Lorain in about 1957. He also survived a gunshot wound to the neck and an earlier bout of melanoma before succumbing to lung cancer on Aug. 24.

Despite those incidents and the personal losses of loved ones, his friends said Froman was an intelligent, funny, prayerful man who spent years becoming like a best friend, father, brother and uncle to Lorain’s Jewish congregation and their supporters.

“Erwin was just grace personified, grace and peace,” said Lorain County Domestic Relations Judge Lisa Swenski, a friend since 1999.

“He was just everything to everybody,” said Sheila Evenchik, office manager and liaison for Agudath B’nai Israel Synagogue in Lorain.

“He was a legend here,” Evenchik said. “He took care of everybody. You didn’t even have to call and ask him or say, I need you. He just knew, he just knew. He would just walk up and put his hand on your shoulder and you knew everything was going to be OK.”

When Froman arrived in Lorain, he met the local Jewish families as the city’s kosher butcher. Arnie Milner, congregation president of the Lorain synagogue, said he was just a boy then, but Froman became a lifelong friend.

“He’s known my whole family ever since, and everybody’s family thought he was just part of their family,” Milner said. “He was that kind of guy.”

Evenchik knew Froman more than 60 years and heard him speak about his Holocaust experiences many times. Speaking without notes, but from his head and heart, Froman never said the same thing twice, she said.

Recounting those details, Froman’s influence spread to thousands of listeners, especially students, Milner said.

World War II

Milner recalled a number of biographical details about Froman’s early life.

Froman grew up in Romania in a village across the river from Sighet, the hometown of another Holocaust survivor — Elie Wiesel, the author and scholar who would win a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

When they were boys, Wiesel’s grandfather was Froman’s instructor in religion and theology.

Later in life, Froman corresponded with Wiesel and the author said Froman was one of the last two people on earth who recalled his grandfather.

In 1944, the Nazi Gestapo arrived at Froman’s village and began rounding up the Jewish residents. They were marched to a ghetto about 10 kilometers away, then loaded into railroad cars for travel to Germany, Milner said.

At Auschwitz, the then 15-year-old Froman was separated from his family and his father was killed almost immediately. He lied to guards about his age because an 18-year-old would have a better chance of being kept alive to work.

In the daily struggles there, his mantra came from Psalms: “I will not die but I shall live so I can tell the greatness of the Lord.”

Finding freedom

Froman would be shipped to two other concentration camps before an American officer arrived in a Jeep on May 7, 1945, to tell the badly malnourished Froman and other prisoners they were liberated.

“He was like, ‘what does that mean, I’m free? I don’t have anywhere to go,’” Milner said.

Froman began searching for surviving family members and eventually reunited with four sisters and a brother, Milner said. They lived in displaced persons camps until traveling to the United States, with Froman arriving in 1949.

Froman had a deep love for his adopted country and its freedoms, Milner said.

“This is what he would always tell the students — you can’t take our freedoms for granted,” Milner said. “It’s remarkable that he survived and that he kept his belief in God and he had all this love in his heart.”

Froman’s story was among those included in the 2018 volume “Sharing the Wisdom of Time,” authored by Pope Francis and Friends.

Additional tragedy

In 1981, Froman was shot through the neck during a carjacking attempt in Cleveland. Milner said the police officer who helped him expected Froman to die, but he recovered.

Froman once was diagnosed with melanoma and given six months to live, but he survived for years after.

His wife, Myrna, and their sons, Neil Mark and Phillip, preceded him in death.

Along with public speaking, Froman became known for visiting people who were sick or shut in, carrying his little black prayer book to visit others in the hospital.

“When he walked into your room and took out this little black book, everything

was better,” Evenchik said.

Later in life, Froman moved to St. Mary of the Woods Nursing and Rehabilitation center in Avon.

In recent months, Swenski used social media to publish tributes to her friend as he dealt with cancer.

“And I will just miss knowing he’s in the world, if that makes sense,” she said. “I feel at peace for him.”

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in life after death, she said.

“The mourning is really about us and missing that person and knowing they’re not in the world anymore,” Swenski said. “He had a good life, he really did, in every sense of the word. It’s everybody’s loss.”

Froman