Felix Zandman

Felix Zandman was born in 1927 in Grodno, Poland, 
to a family of merchants on his mother's side and a family of rabbinical scholars descended from the Maggid of Kelm on his father's. In 1941, at the age 
of fourteen, he was deported along with his entire family,ׁgrandparents on both sides, his parents 
Aharon and Genia, and his seven-year-old sister Mira ׁto the Grodno ghetto.

 In November 1942, the ghetto was sealed and deportations began. Felix, his mother, and his sister fled from the ghetto; they begged Felix's father to escape with them, but he refused to part with his parents. After several days in hiding, the escapees returned to the ghetto because Felix's mother could not endure the separation from her husband. At that point, Felix was mobilized for forced labor outside the ghetto. He and his family lived in the ghetto until February 1942, when the family, which until then had struggled to stay together, was included in a mass deportation to Treblinka. Felix and his maternal uncle, Sender, were separated from the rest of the family because they were performing forced labor outside the ghetto at this time. They fled to the home of Janowa and Jan Puchalski, the caretakers of the family's summer house. The fugitives spent the next year and a half in a pit that had been excavated under their rescuers' bedroom. Three additional people were hiding there, and the group created strict rules of behavior to facilitate life in such overcrowded conditions. In the pit, in total darkness, Felix learned mathematics by heart from his uncle. Felix and his uncle were the only survivors in their family. Felix is married to Ruta and has three children and eight grandchildren.