Norman Salsitz, Holocaust survivor and co-author, with his wife, of “Against All Odds: A Tale of Two Survivors,” died of pneumonia October 11 in Springfield, N.J. He was 86.

Born Naftali Saleschutz in Kolbuszowa, Poland, Salsitz defied death many times — first as a Jewish partisan fighting the Nazis in the Polish forest and then as a member of the Polish underground (the “Home Army”), where he posed as a Christian because of virulent antisemitism in the ranks. Over the course of World War II, he assumed numerous identities and once talked his way out of his own grave — which a Nazi was forcing him to dig — by trading his life for 25 kilos of coffee (a 2005 documentary chronicling his return to Poland was called “Coffee Beans for a Life”).

In 1944, the Home Army sent him to kill the secretary of a construction company, whom the Nazis had instructed to blow up several of Krakow’s historic buildings. Salsitz arrived to find a Jewish woman who had maintained her position at the construction company by masquerading as a Christian. The woman had no intention of carrying out her orders. They wed in 1947 and immigrated to America in 1956; Amalie Petranker Salsitz died in 2003.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Salsitz was also known for Holocaust-era photographs he collected, which survived the war because he hid them in the thatched roofs of Polish peasants’ huts while the peasants slept. He went back after the war to collect them, and ultimately he donated more than 1,000 photographs to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many appear in Salsitz’s books; in addition to “Against All Odds,” he wrote, “A Jewish Boyhood in Poland: Remembering Kolbuszowa (with Richard Skolnik), “In a World Gone Mad: A Heroic Story of Love, Faith, and Survival” (with Amy Hill Hearth and Petranker Salsitz) and with Walter Reich and Stanley Kaish, “Three Homelands: Memories of a Jewish Life in Poland, Israel, and America.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount