OBITUARIES THELMA FAY LAZERNICK VIRGINIA BEACH—Thelma Fay Goldman Lazernick passed away April 20, 2022, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Thelma was born in Norfolk, Va., January 27, 1928, to Solomon and Fannie Swersky Goldman. She grew up in the Ghent section of Norfolk and graduated from Maury High School. She attended the Norfolk Division of William and Mary College (precursor to Old Dominion University) and received her RN from the Sinai Hospital School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland, where she met and married Albert Lazernick. After residing in Maryland for several years, she and Albert returned to Norfolk where they raised their six children. Thelma worked as a private duty nurse for almost 40 years, often helping patients and their families spend their last days at home rather than in a hospital or nursing facility. In addition to her parents, Thelma was predeceased by her husband Albert, sister
Irene, brothers Eugene, Harold, Mickey, Paul, and Jack, as well as her sons Eugene, Steven, and Lee. Left to cherish her memory is daughter Marlie (David) and sons Brad (Judy) and Ernie (Joe). She is also survived by grandchildren Ryan, Samara, Josh, Jenny, Mandy, Isaac, Shayna, and Jacob, as well as a host of great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins. A graveside service was conducted at Forest Lawn Cemetery. The service was live streamed. Donations in Thelma’s memory may be made to the Beth Sholom Home of Eastern Virginia, 6401 Auburn Drive, Virginia Beach, VA, 23464; Congregation Beth El, 422 Shirley Avenue, Norfolk, VA 23517; or the Alzheimer’s Association of Southeastern Virginia. The family wishes to extend their heartfelt appreciation to all the staff at Beth Sholom for the wonderful care they extended to Thelma over the years.
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22 | JEWISH NEWS | May 9, 2022 | jewishnewsva.org
BARBARA HORNSTEIN LEVINSON BREIT WASHINGTON, DC—On Friday, April 22, 2022, Barbara Horstein Levinson Breit, age 91, of Silver Spring, Md., formerly of Portsmouth, Va., passed peacefully surrounded by her family. Barbara, a lifetime member of Gomley Chesed Synagogue, spent most of her life in Portsmouth, moving in her later years to be closer to her family in Maryland. Preceded in death by her husband, Morton Levinson, and their daughter, Merle, and her second husband, Harvey Breit, she leaves to cherish her memory, her children, Leon (Beverly) Levinson, Carol Levinson, Roslyn (Robert) Black, her grandchildren, Sara (Craig) Eidelman, Andi (Jason) Kristall, Jamie (Jared) Maier, Stacey (Andrew) Watson, Mitchell (Diana) Black, and her most beloved great-grandchildren, Tanner, Jenna, Ross, Reese, Frankie, Levi, Jack, Sophie, Abigail, Eliana and Logan. Her family was her greatest legacy. Graveside funeral services were held at Gomley Chesed Cemetery in Portsmouth. Memorial contributions may be made to the Bender JCC of Greater Washington Inclusion Camp, www.benderjccgw.org or to Main Street Connect, www.mainstreetconnect.org. May her memory be for a blessing. Arrangements entrusted to Torchinsky Hebrew Funeral Home, Washington, DC. SURA GOLDNER Sura Goldner passed away on April 21, 2022. Predeceased by her spouse Dr. Martin Goldner. She is survived by her children, Kim Cohen (Daniel), Lance Goldner, Mark Goldner (Sharon). A funeral was held in Suffolk at Holly Lawn Cemetery with Rabbi Roz Mandleberg officiating. MIMI REINHARD, JEWISH SECRETARY WHO TYPED UP SCHINDLER’S LIST SAVING HERSELF AND OTHER JEWS (JTA)—Mimi Reinhard had studied literature and languages as an undergraduate before World War II. But it was a course in shorthand that saved her life. Reinhard was imprisoned at the
Plaszow concentration camp outside of Krakow when she was chosen, due to her excellent German and shorthand skills, to work as a secretary instead of being sent to perform hard labor. That assignment would save her life when she went on to type up the list of Jews to be saved by Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist later named a “righteous among the gentiles” for his efforts to save the approximately 1,200 Jews who worked for him. When Reinhard typed up that list, her own name would be on it. Reinhard died Tuesday, April 6 at 107 in Israel, where she moved in 2007 to be near her son, Sacha Weitman, then a professor at Tel Aviv University. Reinhard was born Carmen Weitman in 1915 in Vienna, where she studied literature at the University of Vienna. After meeting her husband, a man from Krakow, the couple moved in 1936 to Poland, where their son was born three years later, just three months before the war broke out. Her husband was killed in Krakow, but Reinhard survived the war with the rest of “Schindler’s Jews” despite their harrowing journey from Plaszow through Auschwitz and finally to Czechoslovakia. The group was liberated in 1945 and Reinhard and her son, who had survived the war in Hungary, moved to New York. Reinhard remembered Schindler as a “mensch” in an interview with Haaretz shortly after her move to Israel. “I wanted to go with Schindler, because of his reputation, but there were a lot of people who didn’t want to be on that list,” she said. “It was a gamble as far as we were concerned. To go with Schindler was no guarantee of anything. We didn’t believe that Schindler would really succeed in saving us. He was just taking us to a different camp. Who knew? We took a chance only because we believed in Schindler.”
