Harry Weiss

Harry was born in Romania on January 16, 1928, the only child of Avraham and Elizabeth Weiss. He grew up on his family’s estate in Nigreszt. Regular and intense Talmudic studies were coequal with his parochial education until Nazi soldiers seized his entire family and separated him from his parents, at the age of 16. He and his mother were the only survivors of dozens of family members taken. He lost 72 members of his family in one night. For the next year, he managed to survive three of Germany’s worst concentration camps until Liberation came in 1945. He moved around Europe for five years before arriving at New York’s Ellis Island in 1950.

Harry found work in New York’s garment industry when General Sportswear’s founder Louis Rosenstock hired him. Two years later, he married the boss’s daughter, Rhoda, and began the life the Nazi’s failed to eradicate. Harry and Rhonda moved to Raleigh so he could manage the General Sportswear manufacturing facility in Zebulon. They raised two sons – Allen and David – in a spacious, modern home in a lovely tree-lined neighborhood in West Raleigh.

Harry and Rhonda enjoyed membership in Beth Myer Synagogue, where their sons were Bar Mitzvahed. (Harry would attend Congregation Sha’arei Israel in his later years.) They welcomed daughters-in-law, five grandchildren, and Harry lived to see and enjoy his first great-grandchild. Harry moved to San Antonio in 2017 after Rhoda, his wife of 60 years, passed away.

Despite the unspeakable loss and cruelty Harry Weiss experienced in those camps, he didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he was defined by friends and family as a warm and kind gentleman with a delightful sense of humor, an impish sparkle in his eyes, and a deep devotion to his family and his Jewish identity.