Sami Steigmann was born December 21, 1939 in Czernowitz, Romania, to Nathan and Regina. He has no extended family from that part of his life and in fact lost many family members in Auschwitz-Birkenau during the war. Sami’s father grew up in an orphanage, and his mother was not educated. His family was deported by Romania – a Nazi ally – in 1941. From 1941 through 1944, Sami was with his parents in the Ukraine at Mogilev-Podolsky, a labor camp in an area called Transnistria. In the labor camp, Sami was subjected to medical experimentation: he does not know what the medical experiments were, but he still deals with the pain. After the war, the family was repatriated to Romania, and that is where Sami grew up in Transylvania, in a small town called Reghin. In 1961, the whole family (his sister was born in 1946) emigrated to Israel. He served in the Israeli Air Force, though not as a pilot. In 1968, without knowing the language and with no money, Sami came to the United States. He lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he married, divorced and eventually, in 1983 returned to Israel. However, in 1988, he returned to the United States, choosing New York City as his final home. And that is where Crestwood students were able to connect with Sami, zooming with him in April 2026.
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