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| 1 | HOUSE RESOLUTION
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| 2 | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of | ||||||
| 3 | Representatives are pleased to congratulate
Tema Posalska | ||||||
| 4 | Bauer on the occasion of her 100th birthday on May 5, 2016; and
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| 5 | WHEREAS, Tema Bauer was born on May 5, 1916, the youngest | ||||||
| 6 | of nine children in a very religious Jewish
family in Lodz, | ||||||
| 7 | Poland, which at the time, had the second largest Jewish | ||||||
| 8 | population in Poland and the largest Jewish population in | ||||||
| 9 | Europe with 3.3 million; and | ||||||
| 10 | WHEREAS, Tema Bauer persisted
in life against great odds, | ||||||
| 11 | becoming one of less than 300,000 Polish Jews to survive the | ||||||
| 12 | Holocaust; and
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| 13 | WHEREAS, Tema Bauer began her solitary journey when at the | ||||||
| 14 | age 23, she was left alone, supposedly
temporarily, to close up | ||||||
| 15 | the house in Lodz when her parents and older sister left after | ||||||
| 16 | the Nazi
invasion of Poland; the Nazis relocated her to a | ||||||
| 17 | Jewish ghetto and she never saw her parents or
any of her | ||||||
| 18 | brothers or sisters again; she worked in the ghetto kitchen for | ||||||
| 19 | children until 1942
when all children were deported to | ||||||
| 20 | concentration camps; she was then deported to a slave
labor | ||||||
| 21 | camp in Skarzysko-Kamienna, a journey which took three days in | ||||||
| 22 | a standing room-only train car with
no food, water, or bathroom | ||||||
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| 1 | facilities; and
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| 2 | WHEREAS, In August of 1944, as the Russians approached, | ||||||
| 3 | Tema Bauer was sent to
work in an ammunition factory in | ||||||
| 4 | Leipzig, Germany; during an Allied bombing of the camp
in | ||||||
| 5 | February, her arm was severed at the elbow and, even without | ||||||
| 6 | antibiotics, she had the tenacity to stay
alive and to survive | ||||||
| 7 | a six-day death march two months later; and | ||||||
| 8 | WHEREAS, After liberation, Tema Bauer returned to Lodz to | ||||||
| 9 | find out that her parents, eight brothers and
sisters and their | ||||||
| 10 | spouses, and her eighteen nieces and nephews had all been | ||||||
| 11 | murdered by the Nazis,
most of them gassed to death; and | ||||||
| 12 | WHEREAS, Tema Bauer fell in love with Morris Bauer, whom | ||||||
| 13 | she had known from her stay in the ghetto
and, who upon seeing | ||||||
| 14 | the loss of her arm, told her that he would always take care of | ||||||
| 15 | her, which he did from
when they married on October 1, 1945 | ||||||
| 16 | until he died shortly before their 50th wedding anniversary; | ||||||
| 17 | and
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| 18 | WHEREAS, Tema and Morris Bauer immigrated to Chicago in | ||||||
| 19 | 1949, where they raised two sons and
enjoyed being grandparents | ||||||
| 20 | to three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren; today, | ||||||
| 21 | she resides in and closely follow the current events and | ||||||
| 22 | politics of her adopted city; and
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| 1 | WHEREAS, Tema Bauer continues to show her amazing memory | ||||||
| 2 | and her strong will in everything she
does; her life has been | ||||||
| 3 | and remains a blessing and inspiration to her family and to all | ||||||
| 4 | who
know her; therefore, be it
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| 5 | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | ||||||
| 6 | NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | ||||||
| 7 | congratulate Tema Posalska Bauer on her 100 birthday and we | ||||||
| 8 | wish her many happy and healthy years to come; and be it | ||||||
| 9 | further
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| 10 | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | ||||||
| 11 | presented to Tema Bauer as an expression of our
esteem and | ||||||
| 12 | respect.
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