Daisy Gross

One of Daisy Gross’s earliest memories with her father was of their nightly ritual. “We had … a humongous bookcase,” she remembered. “And on top of that was an antique clock. And every night he put me on his shoulders and we went to wind up the clock.”

Not long after this photo was taken, Daisy had to say goodbye to her father, Alexander.

The Slovak government had imposed a number of restrictions on Jews, beginning in 1939. Then in spring 1942, Slovakia agreed to deport Slovak Jews to German-occupied Poland.

Alexander had managed to avoid the worst of the antisemitic restrictions imposed upon Slovak Jews. As the president of a local sugar factory, he received protected status that initially exempted the family from deportations.

Alexander and Olga Leier made the heartbreaking decision to send their daughter into hiding. Daisy went to live with their family’s Catholic cook, Antonia Nikodémová. She lived under a false identity with Antonia for the remainder of the war. Later, Daisy learned that her parents had been discovered in the underground bunker where they had been hiding and were deported to Auschwitz. Neither of them survived.

When thinking about her father, Daisy reflected, “He was a beautiful man and a fantastic human being.”

Daisy eventually moved to Canada and married a fellow survivor. They named their children after Daisy’s parents. “I feel their memory lives on,” said Daisy.

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Daisy Leier Gross Bron :

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum