Pincus Weinstock died Sept. 20 at his Bayside home at the age of 86.
According to his family, “He was a courageous man, starting his life in a family of seven living in a one-room home in a shtetl in Wolbrum, Poland.”
To avoid the Nazis, he carried his elderly, ill father on his shoulders for miles. Later, he was displaced from his family to work camps and ghettos, and eventually was transported to Auschwitz and then to Dachau. There, he was one of only 14 of the 240 prisoners in his barracks who were diverted from the gas chambers, his family explained.
Near the end of the war, he conspired with another to escape after a two-day death march from Dachau. He hid in the forest for days and with a stolen needle and thread, resewed his prison jacket to conceal his Jewish identity. He secured his liberation by continuing to hide.
After the war, he lived in Germany, where he established a chocolate factory, which he later left to pursue a better life for his wife and daughters in the United States.
In Milwaukee, he operated a dry cleaning business. After selling it, he developed apartments and owned a scrap metal business in Kenosha until his retirement.
“He was a self-taught world history scholar,” his family added, “an accomplished chess player, and a mathematical whiz.”
He attended shul regularly, supported Israel, and, according to his family, was an expert in Torah interpretation.
He was the first president of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Red Magen David Adom and was responsible for fundraising to donate an ambulance to Israel; supported Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv and the Jewish National Fund; and was recognized for his volunteerism at the Jewish Community Center, his family said.
His personal history was chronicled in a video prepared by the Shoah Foundation and in the archives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Bluma Weinstock; daughters Esther (Ric) Ancel, Gitta (Barry) Chaet, and Rosalee (Michael) Bamberger, all of Bayside; and ten grandchildren.
Rabbi Jacob Herber and Hazzan Mitchell Martin officiated at the funeral at Congregation Beth Israel. Burial was in Agudas Achim Cemetery.
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