Alex was a world traveler and a world survivor. During the war he went from Poland to Russia to Iran to Iraq to Palestine to Holland to Belgium back to Palestine to Poland to Holland and finally to the USA.

He has been an athlete, a construction engineer, a master mechanic and a displaced person. Along the way he was in two labor camps, the Polish Army (which later deserted him), the British Army (the Jewish Brigade unit from his Kibbutz), and the Israeli Army which later became the Haganah.

His wife of 44 years calls him "a decent man."

With much laughter and strength, Catherine Brams spoke about the war years, how she went from being a secure and happy teenager to being starved and cold after four frightening years in Rotterdam.

Catherine talks about how she kept her spirits up while hiding a beloved Jewish woman, obtaining just enough food to stay alive, entertaining themselves by reading to each other or by reading to themselves and in the end sharing a crust of bread forced to stay warm by burning their furniture; then by burning their books to stay warm.

Biographies written by Ellen Steinberg