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GIs Remember - Halina and Morton Horvitz

Morton Horvitz, the son of a Rabbi and U.S. Army Chaplain, entered the Army in 1943 from Madison, Wisconsin. He served overseas with the 808th Field Artillery in France, Holland and Germany, and helped liberate several slave labor camps.

"While I was waiting to go home in the fall of 1945, 1 met a concentration camp survivor, Halina Jakubowicz, in Regensburg, Germany. Halina arrived there from Cracow, Poland, after having survived four concentration camps including Auschwitz. She was with another Survivor, Nina Krieger, a young teenager under her care. While hiding in a ditch, Nina saw her whole family slaughtered in Lwow, Poland. She made her way to a Catholic convent where she remained until the end of the war.

I fell in love with Halina, and reenlisted in the Army to be with her until we could be married (June 1946).

After my reenlistment, I served with Military Government in Regensburg and helped Jewish DPs locate relatives and obtain housing there."

In recent -Years, Mort and Halina have been frequent visitors to krakow where Mort leads religious services for the tiny Jewish community there.

GIs RememberNational Museum of American Jewish Military History