Abe Rudnick




Abe Rudnick was born Abe Rudnik, on January 15, 1926, the third child of Hershel and Rachel Kaplan Rudnik. He spent his early years at 12 Zamkowa Street in the small farming town of Olshany (originally Holszany), in Vilna Province. The town was surrounded by forests with lumber and flax as its main industry. Jews lived mostly in the town center near the public market.

Abe had two older siblings, a brother Irving and sister Rhoda, as well as a younger brother Sanford (See also Sanford Rudnick.) Also living with the family was their maternal grandmother Sarah Kaplan.

The family was religious. They lived across the street from the town's synagogue. Rabbi Chodesh frequently consulted with Abe’s father, a well respected and learned man in the community. Hershel had attended the Slobodka Yeshiva outside of Kovno (Kaunas), where he had earned his smicha (rabbinic certification). Although he never practiced as a rabbi, he taught Hebrew in the Jewish school.

After marrying, Rachel Kaplan, Hersh opened a bar and restaurant called “Rudnik’s.” Among his clients were members of the intelligentsia and wealthy landowners who met in a private room, and the peasants from the village, mostly farmers and lumbermen, who frequented the main room. The latter came to Hersch not only for food and drink, but for help in writing letters. Abe, remembers his mother as very hard working, an excellent cook, and deeply religious. She would begin preparing for the Sabbath on Thursday. In addition to raising her family, she spent many hours assisting the business.

Abe attended the Jewish school until fifth grade, when his studies were interrupted. From a young age he had many chores. He went to the bakery several times a day for bread and other restaurant supplies. Sabbaths he went to the synagogue. He joined Betar, a Zionist youth group active in his town, which focused on developing a strong connection to Israel (then Palestine), and preparing its members to emigrate there. Meetings were devoted to building a strong Jewish identity with emphasis on self reliance and self defense. These lessons served Abe well during the war and after.

When Abe was ten, Herschel's brother Albert, who had emigrated to the United States in 1905, came for a visit. He had done very well in the armynavy store he established in Albany, New York. In 1935, Abe’s parents decided to send Rhoda, at 12 and Irving, at 14, to the United States to join their Uncle. Rhoda went on to college and was eventually employed by NY State. Irving finished high school and eventually enlisted in the United States Army stationed in Italy.

Abe and his younger brother, Sanford, remained with their parents. By 1937- 1938, life for Jews began to change. The atmosphere became more antisemitic. There were special slogans admonishing the public, "Don't buy from Jews." Because the Rudniks had good relations with their clientele, however, they were not as affected by these restrictions.

In 1940, when he was 45, Hershel died of a medical condition shortly before the Soviets, at this time allied with the Nazis, occupied eastern Poland and Lithuania. Many of the Jews scattered to other towns. The Rudniks remained and found their business taken over to become Russian government offices. The Russians allowed the Rudniks to remain in the family living quarters but Rachel was required to work as the housekeeper.

In 1941 the Germans invaded the Soviet Union and seized control of all of Poland and Lithuania. By July, they arrived in Olshany. In 1942, they forced the Jews to move into a ghetto in the town center near the marketplace where the Jews lived. It was surrounded by a wooden fence. Abe remembers that the gypsies were shot in the nearby forest. In winter, Jews were forced to shovel snow off the highways and summers to work in the forests, cutting down trees.

Later, in 1942, Abe was deported in a cattle car to Zesmary (Ziezmariai), a concentration camp in Lithuania. Here young Jewish men were crammed into two buildings, formerly a synagogue and a movie house, where Abe slept in a bunk bed. Abe, along with other able-bodied Jews, were forced to work crushing stones to build the highways guarded by Polish, Lithuanian and/or Ukrainian guards.

Later Abe boarded a cattle car with a large group of young men. It took them two weeks to reach the Vilna Ghetto. The weather was frigid, about 40 degrees below zero. This was the worst time for Abe as he came down with typhus and was hospitalized. After recovering, he worked on the railroad tracks, always managing to evade deportation. There was constant hunger. For Abe the Vilna Ghetto was the worst, he was always in danger of being selected and taken to the Ponar Forest and shot.

After eight months, in 1943, Abe was able to escape from a work detail. Miche Rudnik, who was not a relative but came from Abe’s home town, had arranged for him to board a truck with three other people going back to the Zesmary Camp where he learned that his mother and brother were living. Sanford had been able to hide his mother from the selections of older people. Conditions in Zesmary were better than those in the Vilna Ghetto. Sometimes Abe would be able to sneak away from a work detail and find a farmer willing to trade some clothes for some food for the family.

Soon the Zesmary camp was liquidated and the Rudniks were transferred with Jews from three other camps and relocated to the Kovno Ghetto. Some time later Abe volunteered to work in the nearby Goszudary (Koschedaren) Camp. There he worked in the forest digging turf (peat) in the forest for fuel in summer and cutting lumber in the winter. Once he observed the Nazis rounding up children, taking them away from their mothers. They were sent to the Seventh Fort where they were killed.

Abe remained in Goszudary for almost a year before he was able to join a group escaping the Camp to join the partisans. Led by a man called Syskin from Abe’s home town, they connected with a forester who assisted them in reaching the main camp which housed members of the Lithuanian Brigade, composed of Jews and non-Jews, in a large camp about 50 kilometers away. Living in bunkers, surrounded by trees, they had a kitchen and even an underground hospital and doctor. They raided nearby farms for food. They were assisted by the Russians. Abe was given a gun and assigned to carry mines which a fellow partisan would explode with a gun in acts of sabotage.

Abe remained with the partisans for eight months, from October 1943 to July 13, 1944, when they were liberated by the Russian forces. Abe walked out of the forest and made his way back to Vilna where he found the city bombed out. Hoping to find word about his family, he joined a group returning to Olshany. The neighbors were amazed to see the survivors. Abe found his house in good order but without any furniture. Part of the stove was taken, but it was offered back by neighbors. They never offered to return the furniture, however, which he now saw in neighbors’ homes.

One day he was amazed to hear that his brother was walking home with a group of people. Everyone had thought he was dead. Abe got on his bike to greet him along the way. Sanford at that time was 16 years old and Abe was 18. Sanford later told Abe that he had crawled out of a mass grave.

In 1945, after the war was over, a law was passed that anyone living in white Russia who wanted to go to Poland could register to emigrate there after filling out the necessary papers. Since Poland had briefly been taken over by the Russians in 1941, they were considered former Polish citizens. The brothers decided that it was time to leave home.

They travelled by train first to Warsaw where they stayed during the high holidays and then made their way to Lodz with his cousin Yehuda Avishi and others. He was able to find lodging for about three months with a members of the Betar organization which maintained some rooms. Before they left Lodz, Abe met a woman named Sonia Kastner (who eventually also made her way to Rochester, NY). She told him that she had slept in the same barrack as Abe's mother Rachel. She also told them that Rachel had died in the concentration camp. (See also Sonya Kastner)

Abe’s dream was to emigrate to Palestine, but to do that he needed to cross the border illegally into western Europe. They joined a group of three guys all disguised as Greek citizens trying to make their way back to their homeland. They went through Czechoslovakia and Austria, staying in various DP camps along the way.

Finally, in the winter of 1946, Abe was able to enter Italy where he stayed in a DP camp in Santa Maria de Banne. After trying unsuccessfully for ninth months to get into Palestine, Abe and his brother decided to join a group going to Germany where they found lodging in Foehrenwald, a DP camp in Bavaria, close to Munich. He worked there as a shipping boy. Later he and Sanford traveled to Prien, Germany, where they found a camp nearby in Bad Aibling called IRO Children’s Village for orphaned children and young adults waiting to go to the United States or Canada. He stayed there from 1947-1949. Staying in the same area was Hilda Singer who would later became his wife.

In 1949, Abe and Sanford travelled through Munich to the Bremerhaven transit camp to obtain their visas sponsored by the YMCA. They left in August 17, 1949, on the army transport ship SS Balloon which was also bringing groups of soldiers home.

The brothers were surprised to find their brother Irving awaiting them. He took them to live with their Uncle Albert in Albany. Changing the spelling of their name to Rudnick, like the rest of the family, they worked for a brief time in Uncle Albert’s army/navy story. They soon decided to join their sister Rhoda who had married and moved to Rochester. In 1950 Abe married Hilda (See also Hilda Singer Rudnick) and later started Superior Unfinished Furniture Store with his brother-in-law Bud Rothman. In 1963 he opened his own business Rudnick’s Unfinished Furniture. Hilda became vice president and bookkeeper. As his business became very successful, he opened another store for his brother Sanford.

Hilda and Abe had two children, Rita and Howard. Howard married Miriam Hoffman and has three children, Rachel and Joel Rudnick and Marcie Shapiro. Abe was a 50 year member of the Knights of Pythias and was always appreciative of his life in America and the family and business he was able to build. He passed away on August 16, 2012.

Biography written by Barbara Appelbaum from CHAI Interview Conducted by Jane Rushefsky