BIRTH: | August 28, 1924; Krakow, Poland |
DEATH: | January 2, 2001; Phoenix, Arizona |
SPOUSE: | Saralee Salzberg (m. 1952 in New York City) |
CHILDREN: | David, Adam, Laura |
PARENTS: | Salomon Jozef Soldinger, Adele Presser |
SIBLINGS: | Jacob David, Sabina |
Samuel Soldinger was born in Krakow, Poland, on August 28, 1924. His father died when Soldinger was a child, and his mother raised he and his sister as a single mother working as a nurse.
Samuel was 14 years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. As a Jewish family, the Soldingers were forced to abandon their home. Rather than live under Nazi rule, Jacob David tried to escape eastward into the Soviet Union, where he soon died of typhoid. Adele and Sabina were forced to live in the Krakow Ghetto. Soldinger worked at the city airport, earning just pennies a day, and lived separated from his mother and sister in a nearby labor camp.