SR0984 102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0984 LRB102 27181 LAW 38741 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to learn of the death of Tema "Temcia" (Posalska) Bauer of Morton Grove, who passed away on March 23, 2022 at the age of 105; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer was born to Hendel and Chil Posalska in Lodz, Poland on May 5, 1916; she was the youngest of nine children; her siblings were Shmiel, Frania, Gutcha, Yosef, Barrish, Herschel, Mania, and Sarah; and

WHEREAS, When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Tema Bauer's siblings decided to move their parents to a smaller town, thinking it might be safer; she intended to close the family home and follow them, but she was ordered into the Jewish ghetto in Lodz while her relatives were sent to Chelmno, which was the first stationary facility where poison gas was used to mass murder Jews; she never again saw the 38 members of her family, which included her parents, her siblings, their husbands and wives, and her 21 nieces and nephews; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer worked in a kitchen and then at a shoe factory in the Lodz Ghetto; she underwent a three-day train journey in 1943, where she stood in a packed car with no room to sit, no water, no food, and no bathroom facilities, before arriving at the slave labor camp Skarzysko-Kamienna; she was then sent to a factory in Leipzig, Germany, where she was forced to make munitions alongside other slave laborers; she was seriously injured by bombing and survived thanks to two Jewish doctors, who amputated her right arm above her elbow without anesthesia or antibiotics, causing her to lose her dominant hand in the process; two months after she lost her arm, she was ordered on a six-day death march with other women laborers toward the Elbe River in 1945; she was liberated after her Nazi captors fled due to Allied forces drawing near; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer returned to Lodz, seeking news of her family; while there, she reunited with Morris "Moishe" Bauer, a fellow Holocaust survivor who had survived at least seven camps due in part to his skills as a cobbler and who, like her, was also the sole survivor of his family; they married in 1945; they then went to a displaced-persons camp in Germany, where she was determined to prove that she could do with one hand what any other wife could do with two and received an award one month for having the cleanest home in the camp; they had their first son, Jerry, while at the camp in 1948; and

WHEREAS, Alongside her young family, Tema Bauer emigrated to the United States through Ellis Island, settling in Chicago in 1949; they lived on Grenshaw Street on the West Side for approximately eight months before settling in East Rogers Park; her husband borrowed $1,758.38 from the Jewish Family and Community Service organization to open a shoe-repair shop on Devon Avenue, which they paid back in 1956; they had their second son, Michael, in 1952; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer and her husband Morris remained an inseparable team, devoted to one another and their growing family; after her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, she cared for him for the last eight years of his life until his death in 1995; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer was affectionately known as "Mama Tema" to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who she would kvell over, attending every birthday party, bar and bat mitzvah, graduation, recital, sports event, and wedding; she was a skilled cook known for her kreplach, borscht, chicken matzoh ball soup, mandel bread, cinnamon-scented kugel and apple slices, and gefilte fish; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer was one of the oldest Holocaust survivors in Illinois at the time of her passing, and she will be remembered for her wisdom, courage, and inner strength, the remarkable qualities of her extraordinary life; her story will live on through the oral history interview she provided on November 8, 1992 to the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois, known today as the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, which is now part of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; and

WHEREAS, Tema Bauer was the beloved wife of the late Morris "Moishe" Bauer; the loving mother of Dr. Jerry (Adrienne) Bauer and the late Michael Bauer (Roger Simon); the adoring grandmother of Michelle (Stuart) Primack, Dr. Hillary Bauer-Cohen (Jeffrey Cohen), and Aaron (Lauren) Bauer; and the doting great-grandmother of Maya Primack, Mason Primack, Sasha Cohen, Jonah Cohen, Joshua Cohen, Olivia Bauer, and Miles Bauer; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of Tema "Temcia" (Posalska) Bauer and extend our sincere condolences to her family, friends, and all who knew and loved her; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Tema Bauer as an expression of our deepest sympathy.