Keeping the Promise:

March 28, 2018

Brooklyn, NY – On Sunday, March 25, 2018 longtime Brooklyn resident, and a client of Selfhelp Community Services’ Holocaust Survivor Program, Mr. Szjya “Steve” Pulwers passed away at 108 years old. He made his wish known to be buried in Israel, and Selfhelp Community Services is providing a grant to assist Mr. Pulwers’s family honor this request. This grant further fulfills Selfhelp’s promise to serve as the last surviving relative to survivors, supporting and enabling a life of dignity.

Mr. Pulwers was born in Poland and survived the Holocaust in Kazakhstan before escaping to Vienna, and eventually becoming a resident of New York City. Selfhelp Community Services has been by his side since 2009 to offer needed social services and a connection to the Holocaust survivor community in Brooklyn.

Mr. Pulwers was the youngest of eight children and attended Yeshiva in his hometown of Sierpcu, Poland. From the age of 18 years old, he was a professional shoemaker in Poland before the war and in the former USSR after the war. At the beginning of the war, he fled Poland, was arrested by Soviet soldiers, and was forced to work in a factory in Kazakhstan. In order to find safety after the war, Mr. Pulwers traveled to Holland to get a passport and the necessary papers to travel to America. As he was unable to travel directly to the United States and unable to return to Poland, he waited in Vienna, Austria and then Rome, Italy. His name was changed from Szjya to Steve by the immigration officials in the United States. Mr. Pulwers held multiple jobs in New York, including as a shoemaker and for over 20 years, he worked at a Manischewitz wine factory in Manhattan.

Mr. Pulwers valued the time he spent with his family including his son, daughter, and grandchildren. Selfhelp funded a trip for Mr. Pulwers to celebrate his 102nd birthday and his great-grandson’s Bar Mitzvah with his family in Israel. After the trip, Mr. Pulwers smiled as he remembered the trip with his social worker, “There were more than 20 people. It gives me goose bumps just to think of how wonderful it was—four generations around the table.”

In an interview in 2012, Mr. Pulwers said “I’m a lucky man. I’m happy,” he says. “You must have peace with your family. Take care of yourself. Keep a routine, work hard and don’t eat before bed. The most important thing is to have balance.” Mr. Pulwers spent his time playing songs by heart on his electric piano and enjoyed daily walks until his health no longer permitted it. Szjya Pulwers lived in Boro Park, Brooklyn with his wife Josepha of 41 years.

For many years, Mr. Pulwers met with his social workers in Selfhelp’s Holocaust Survivor Program. His social workers helped him obtain reparations funds from Germany as well as help Mr. Pulwers navigate his personal paperwork. Despite having his eyesight damaged when he was a prisoner during the war, his social workers remarked that Mr. Pulwers was “very resourceful and loved his independence.” The Selfhelp social workers noted how remarkable it was to see Mr. Pulwers’s resiliency and happiness, despite having been through so much grief and loss as a young man.

Selfhelp is committed to their mission of serving as the ‘last surviving relative’ to Holocaust Survivors living in New York. The organization operates the oldest and largest program serving Holocaust survivors in North America, caring for over 4,300 elderly and frail individuals. The Holocaust Survivor Programs offers core home and community-based services including trauma-informed case management, housekeeping, home health care, financial management, guardianship, social programming, and financial assistance.

Mr. Pulwers featured in the Selfhelp Community Services 2012 Annual Report. To read his profile, click and go to page 10: selfhelp.net/pdf/annual-reports/2012-Annual-Report.pdf.

About Selfhelp Community Services

Selfhelp Community Services was founded in 1936 to help those fleeing Nazi Germany maintain their independence and dignity as they struggled to forge new lives in America. Today, Selfhelp is one of the largest and most respected not-for-profit human service agencies in the New York metropolitan area, with 27 sites offering programs throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Nassau County and Westchester. Selfhelp provides a broad set of services to more than 20,000 elderly, frail, and vulnerable New Yorkers each year, while remaining the largest provider of comprehensive services to Holocaust survivors in North America. We offer a complete network of home care and community-based services with the overarching goal of helping seniors live with dignity and independence and avoid institutionalization. www.selfhelp.net

To follow Selfhelp on social media visit: twitter.com/selfhelpny and www.facebook.com/SelfhelpCommunityServices

Contact: Sandy Myers

smyers@selfhelp.net

212-971-7627 (office)

908-812-7465 (cell)