Nella and Myer Glick

Myer Glick was born Icek Meir Galek in the small town of Blonie, Poland, west of Warsaw in 1926. His family owned a hosiery factory. When the war broke out, Myer’s family fled east to Warsaw, away from the advancing Germany army, which nevertheless occupied the Polish capital. At first they had an apartment, but soon they, like all Jews in the city, were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. The conditions in the ghetto were horrible and deteriorated over time, but Myer and his brothers risked everything to slip out of the ghetto and smuggle food in. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May and April 1943, Myer and his father were able to hide in bunkers in the ghetto, just before they were captured by Germans. They were deported to Majdanek concentration camp, where they survived for four months. Then they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they arrived in late 1943. Myer and his father survived the first winter at Birkenau. Later they were transferred to Melk labor camp in Steyermark, Austria. The Americans liberated the camp in the final days of the war. He then trekked back to Blonie, with a long detour to Krakow for eight months, where he found some cousins who had survived. Later he traveled to Heidenheim displaced persons camp near Stuttgart, in the American occupation zone. While there, he was contacted by an uncle, who lived in Philadelphia. With the sponsorship of his uncle, Myer immigrated to the United States in 1949. When he arrived in Boston, his uncle greeted him and brought him to Philadelphia. Myer worked as a shoe salesman in Philadelphia. After raising enough money, Myer started his own shoe store in Norristown, PA. There he met his wife, Nella Distenfeld, in 1958. 

Nella Glick was born in the small village which is now modern day Ukraine but at the time was Polish territory called Podlipce. Her name at birth was Nella Distenfeld. She lived with her parents, Eshter and Solomon Distenfeld, her aunt Clara Hochman (Wasserstrum), and her sister Yetta (Bergstein). Her family had a farm with a few acres of land, and her father owned a flour mill in a nearby village. Nella was only three years old when the war began and survived the entirety of the war by hiding with families from nearby villages. Luckily for Nella, she did not look Jewish, she had blonde hair and was able to blend in with families that hid her.  Her entire family survived the war in hiding, and went to a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1945. On June 7th, 1947 Nella and her family arrived in the United States, they stayed in New York until 1952, when they moved to Vineland and purchased a chicken farm. She graduated from Vineland High School in 1956. Myer and Nella married in Philadelphia in 1959, and lived in Norristown for ten years. They have three children, and four grandchildren. Nella will be 84 years old in July of 2021. 

Myer was given a business opportunity to buy Tri-City Lumber in Vineland, New Jersey in 1969. Nella’s sister, Yetta Bergstein, and her husband Ben Bergstein, decided to invest as partners in a lumber company where Ben worked; the owners were looking to sell. After Myer and Nella retired from the Lumber business, they remained in Vineland until 2014, when they moved to Marlton, New Jersey to be closer to their children. Myer passed away in 2017; he was 91 years old. Nella Glick still lives in Marlton.