Full Text of SR0221 095th General Assembly
SR0221 95TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
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SR0221 |
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| SENATE RESOLUTION
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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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| 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
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| 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
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| WHEREAS, Sandor Kirsche is survived by his wife, Margit; |
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| his children, Ira Kirsche and Lynn Shapiro; and his numerous | 2 |
| grandchildren, nieces, and nephews; therefore, be it
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| 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
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| 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.
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