Joseph Mandelbaum, Holocaust Survivor, Dies at 90

Joseph Mandelbaum, the first Holocaust survivor to be interviewed on video for what would eventually become Steven Spielberg's the Shoah Project, died on Monday. He was 90.

Joseph, a resident of Monroe Township at the Ponds at Clearbrooke with wife Lena, was the father of Syd Mandelbaum, founder of Cedarhurst-based Rock and Wrap it Up!, which rescues food at sports games and concerts.

Joseph Mandelbaum was born in Szczakowa, Poland, in 1922. Most of his family, including seven brothers and a sister, were murdered during the Holocaust. After surviving the Nazis’ death camps, Joseph met his wife at a displaced person’s camp near Munich. They were married for 65 years.

The Mandelbaums came to the United States in 1950 and settled in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, then Canarsie. Joseph worked for Christian Dior as a tailor on the Molly Parness line.

"My father was a great man and a hero to me. His concentration camp survival inspired Rock and Wrap It Up!," Syd Mandelbaum said. "His voice is silent, the twinkle in his eyes gone, but his shadow is long and soothing. I hurt but celebrate a life well lived."

Joseph Mandelbaum was interviewed on video about his Holocaust experience in 1981 for the Second Generation of Long Island documentation project founded by his son Syd, who gave it to Spielberg in 1993. Joseph was also the first person to donate DNA to the DNA Shoah Project in 2007. He helped the CIA identify Russian bases when his lost brother Joshua came out of Russia in 1972.

He lead the minyan society in his development for 15 years.

Joseph is survived by his wife Lena, son Syd and daughter-in-law Diane and five grandchildren, daughter Gladys Krelenstein and her husband Alan and four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and daughter Sherry Cammeyer and husband Rusell and two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

He is also survived by nephew Mark in Madison, Wis., niece Melinda in Savanah, Ga., nephew Schmul in Beni Barach, Israel, and a niece in Modine Elit, Israel.