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1
SENATE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to
3 learn of the death of Sandor Kirsche of Chicago, who passed
4 away on April 27, 2007; and
 
5     WHEREAS, Sandor Kirsche was born with the surname
6 Kirschenbaum on January 24, 1926 in Hluboka, in the former
7 Czechoslovakia; he was buried on April 30, 2007 on Har
8 HaMenuchot in Jerusalem; and
 
9     WHEREAS, Sandor Kirsche was a survivor of the Holocaust;
10 for the first years of World War II, Mr. Kirsche lived in
11 Hluboka; he later left to find work in Budapest, where he
12 remained until April 1944, when he returned home; on the day
13 after Passover, Hluboka's Jews were rounded up and taken to a
14 ghetto in Uzhgorod; on May 26, 1944, Mr. Kirsche and the others
15 were put onto cattle cars and taken to Auschwitz; he remained
16 there with his younger brother and father for about a week,
17 until they were taken to Buchenwald; from there, the three were
18 sent to Magdeburg, a town about 50 miles from Berlin, to work
19 as slave laborers building concrete bunkers; he was sent back
20 to Buchenwald in March 1945; in April 1945, he and some 2,000
21 others were sent from Buchenwald on a death march; this march
22 ended abruptly when the Nazi guards fled the group, followed by
23 the surrender of Germany to the Allies on May 7, 1945; and
 

 

 

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1     WHEREAS, After the war, Sandor Kirsche attempted to travel
2 to Palestine, a trip that fell through; he met a
3 Yiddish-speaking American soldier from New York, who offered to
4 help Mr. Kirsche find his relatives in Chicago; through a
5 series of serendipitous occurrences, Mr. Kirsche and his new
6 wife, Margit, were able to gain U.S. citizenship and make their
7 way to Chicago; their first grocery store was in Humboldt Park;
8 in 1971, Mr. Kirsche, with his son Ira, purchased a small deli
9 meat market on Devon Avenue called Hungarian Kosher; he managed
10 to bring his two older sisters and their families here from the
11 Soviet Union in 1972; in 1985, Mr. Kirsche and his son moved
12 the business to its present location in Skokie; as an enlarged,
13 full-service supermarket, it may have been the first of its
14 type in the country and became the largest in the Midwest;
15 around 1993, a kosher wine department with an online presence,
16 reputed to be the world's largest, was added; Mr. Kirsche's
17 grandson Daniel joined the business around 2001; and
 
18     WHEREAS, Sandor and Margit Kirsche were recognized by
19 Hillel Torah in Skokie as "Grandparents of the Year" in 1994;
20 they were also honored by the Associated Talmud Torahs in 1999
21 on the occasion of the initiation of a Department of Holocaust
22 Studies; and
 
23     WHEREAS, Sandor Kirsche is survived by his wife, Margit;

 

 

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1 his children, Ira Kirsche and Lynn Shapiro; and his numerous
2 grandchildren, nieces, and nephews; therefore, be it
 
3     RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL
4 ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn, along with
5 his family and friends, the passing of Sandor Kirsche; and be
6 it further
 
7     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
8 presented to the family of Sandor Kirsche as an expression of
9 our respect and sympathy.