Born in Glowaczow, Poland in 1922, Henry Dorfman was one of four children in a large Orthodox family. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Dorfman family continued to live in Glowaczow under an increasing amount of persecution from the Nazi occupation forces. The family was relocated to a large ghetto in Kozienice in 1941. While in the ghetto, Henry and his father were separated from his mother and three siblings and used as laborers on the estate of a Volksdeutsche (native German) aristocrat. Sometime in the fall of 1942, the entire Dorfman family was rounded-up and put on a transport to the Treblinka death camp. Once again, separated from his mother and siblings, Henry and his father escaped from the train. His mother and siblings died en route to, or immediately upon arrival at Treblinka. Following their escape, Henry and his father hid in a barn and were given assistance by one of the workers employed by the Volksdeutsche aristocrat. Later they served in a partisan unit until the area was liberated by the Soviet Army in 1944. Henry remained in Europe for several years following the end of the war, helping his father establish two businesses in Łódź, Poland and establishing his own in Germany. He later moved to the United States with his wife, Mala, whom he met in Poland after the war.
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