Bela Glaser (1936-2017), a Cleveland area physician trained in postwar Germany, was born in Budapest, Hungary, to Samuel Glaser and Janka Glaser, nee Klopfer, on September 28, 1936. Little is known of Glaser's early years, though it is clear he and his family were deported from Hungary to Yugoslavia during World War II. Materials in the collection include only a mention of Bela's brother, Otto, in Bor, Yugoslavia. The first Hungarian Jews were sent in mid 1943 to Bor, a copper mine taken over by the Germans in 1941. It is most likely that Bela and his parents were also taken there. By the summer of 1944, around 6,000 Hungarians, mostly Jews, had been sent to Bor. In September of 1944, as the Soviet armies were approaching from the East, the mine was evacuated. Many prisoners were executed and the surviving prisoners were sent out in two main groups. The first group of survivors was sent to the Dachau, Buchenwald, Oranienburg- Sachsenhausen, or Flossenburg concentration camps. The second group of survivors, probably the group that Bela was in, was liberated by Yugoslav partisans.
Soon after the war, Bela's father Samuel passed away. Bela and his family returned to Budapest where he studied at I. Stephen General Boys' Gymnasium in Budapest XIV from 1951 to 1955. Otto and his mother eventually immigrated to the United States, but Bela stayed in Europe to attend medical school at the University of Freiburg in Germany. He stayed until 1972, when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, with his brother and mother in order to obtain his American medical license from Boston University and Harvard University. Glaser later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to work at Mount Sinai Hospital. He then became full-time medical director at Montefiore Home for the Aged in 1972. Later in his life, he worked at Menorah Park. His mother died in University Heights in 1979 and his brother Otto in 1994 in Cleveland. Bela Glaser lived in Beachwood until his death in 2017.
The Bela Glaser Papers and Photographs, 1924-1975 and undated, consist of insurance applications, articles, a booklet, a calendar, medical certificates, a class report, correspondence, driver's licenses, prayer books, a thesis, transcripts, a photo album, and photographs.
Those who are interested in Bela Glaser, the Glaser family, the Holocaust, the Bor concentration camp in Yugoslavia, postwar German medical training, the history of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and the religious identity of Holocaust survivors will find this collection of value. All photographs have been retained within the collection and family members included in photographs are listed in the inventory for Series II.
Of particular interest is a framed prayer book which is said to have saved Otto Glaser's life during the Holocaust, as well as Bela Glaser's life during a devastating illness later in his life.
The collection is arranged in two series.
Processed by John Veres and Robert Janis in 2017.
None.
[Container __, Folder__ ] MS 5424 Bela Glaser Papers and Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of Ann Mari Pearson in 2017.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.