Page 127 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Jesteśmy drzewami wiecznymi.

always called him Heniek, together with other musicians who had survived
the Łódź ghetto, partially related to each other, founded the jazz band, “The
Happy Boys” in Cham, which performed in the camps for displaced people
and in American military bases in 1945-1949. The swing-jazz band played
mostly pre-war music, as well as pieces composed in the ghetto, including
outstanding compositions by Dawid Bajgelman. New songs were also written
and performed. Henry Bajgelman wrote new lyrics and a composition for the
band, which became a great post-war hit called We long for a home. Music
was an opportunity for the Survivors to return to a normal life.
In 1947, Henry Bajgelman married Gita Glazer, who had been engaged to
his younger brother, Chunem before the war.
Gita Glazer (born 1919) had four brothers: Samuel, Jakub, Seweryn and Leon
and two sisters: Perla and Pola. Their father, Józef Mordechaj, a teacher, was a
very religious man. Before the war, Tova, mother, and her sons ran the Veritas
factory, which produced men’s shirts and linen. Before the war, the Glazers
lived at 12, Północna Street and then at 1, Północna Street. Gita studied in
a girl’s middle school. At the beginning of the war, her brothers Seweryn and
Samuel with their wives, as well as her parents, moved to Warsaw, where they
were sent to the Warsaw ghetto. Gita and Pola stayed in Łódź. They lived with
their brother, Leon, who managed the clothing and linen department and
several factories in the Łódź ghetto, and her sister, Perla and her husband
at 158, Franciszkańska Street, and from 1943, at 4, Kościelny Square. Gita
worked in the linen department belonging to her brother. Deported in one
of the August transports, she was sent to Ravensbrück and other camps. In
the first days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, her father and brothers with
their wives managed to get to the Aryan side, where they were hidden by
the family of Jerzy Koźmiński. They all lived to see the end of the war. After
the war, the Glazers tried to continue their pre-war businesses in Łódź, they
even had a factory in Zachodnia Street, where they produced uniforms for
the army. Gita also returned to Łódź, but soon after the death of her fiancée,
she left for Munich where Leon Glazer also lived. In 1947, Samuel and his wife
Mina went to Jerusalem, Sewek and Fania went to Buenos Aires.
In 1949, Gita and Henry Bajgelman with Leon and his wife emigrated to the
United States and settled in New York. Henry played the saxophone and
violin in various jazz bands, but he also earned extra money as a salesman.
In 1958, together with his friends from Łódź, he invested in the real estate
market, managed one of the hotels in Manhattan, but until the end of his
life, music was his passion. The Bajgelmans’ daughter, Riva (married name
Berelson) was born in New York in 1952, and their son, Shimon in 1955. They
were both named after their grandparents, Rywa and Szymon Bajgelman, in
their honour. Henry died in 2002, Gita in 2011. After the death of their parents,
Riva and Shimon donated family memorabilia, including instruments from the
Łódź ghetto, to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Gita has had her own tree in the Survivors’ Park since 2004, Henry’s was
planted in 2019.

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