Congratulations Holocaust Survivor Joe Rubinstein and his Wife Irene Celebrating 73 Years Today!

Shortly after WW2, Holocaust survivor Joe Rubinstein, was standing on a street corner in Duisburg-Hamborn, Germany when a man tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Excuse me, but is that a Polish accent I hear you speaking?” Joe said yes and explained that he was from Radom, Poland. “I’m from Poland too,” the man exclaimed. My name is also Joe! Joe Gusenda. Mr. Gusenda went on to share that he and his wife, along with their two young children, had moved to Germany in 1930 to open a tailor shop. (Joe Rubinstein later learned that during thing the war someone overheard  Mr. Gusenda’s only son Walter of saying to a friend in a restaurant, “I don’t like what the Nazis are doing.'“ That was all it took, teenage Walter was accused of being a spy, arrested, and executed.

Joe Rubinstein explained that he too had been imprisoned for no crime, other than being Jewish. He was held in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz/Birkenau. He had been taken from the Radom Ghetto and never saw any of his family again. His beloved widowed mother, his older brother Dawid, Joe’s identical twin Chaim, and Joe’s younger brother Abram, and his younger sister Laja, were all believed to have been murdered in the Treblinka Death camp, along with over 33,000 people from the Radom ghettos.

Mr. Gusenda invited Joe to come over for dinner, and added, “By the way, I have a beautiful daughter.” Joe and that beautiful daughter were married 73 years ago today! Just after they met, Joe and Irene could often be found dancing the night away at a local nightclub…dancing the Foxtrot, jitterbug, and Joe’s favorite, the Viennese waltz. They wanted to dance the horrors of the war away. All these years later, Joe and Irene will take a slow spin around the dance floor.

Late in 1949, Joe and Irene, along with their infant son, emigrated to New York City, where Joe would go on to become one of the leading shoe designers in the world. Joe says often, that he would not be alive today without Irene by his side.

Earlier this month, on September 16, 2020, Joe celebrated his 100th birthday with Irene by his side. Here is a photo from that glorious celebration…a day where the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, U.S.A. (where Joe and Irene now reside) proclaimed the day: The Joe Rubinstein Day.

I’m unofficially declaring this day: September 27, 2020, as the Joe and Irene Rubinstein Day!

Their marriage is an example to us all—for if a Jewish man, who spent the war as a slave laborer in concentration camps, and his Polish/German/Catholic wife found a way to live all these years in love and joy, we can all learn to get along.

To learn more about Joe and Irene’s remarkable love story: Auschwitz #34207 - The Joe Rubinstein Story.

Joe and Irene on Joe’s 100th birthday, September 16, 2020

Joe and Irene celebrate both their faiths in love: The Jewish Star and the Christian Cross

Irene and Joe (center) at the Rinehoff, Duisburg, Hamburg, Germany

Irene’s teenage brother Walter, executed by the Nazis.

Irene and Joe 2019 (Photo by Crystal Merrill)