Samuel Spritzer was proud of the callous on his thimble finger, evidence of decades spent in the luxury fur business. He was born into a family of furriers who had practiced their art in Rawa Ruska, Poland for six generations. Samuel began to learn the trade as soon as he reached his 13th birthday.
Samuel’s apprenticeship was rudely interrupted by the German and Soviet invasions of Poland in 1939. Until then, he had led a sheltered life among his mother’s pious and protective family. (Samuel’s father died when he was a very young child, so he had little memory of him). Rawa Ruska was under Russian occupation until 1941, when German troops entered eastern Poland as part of “Operation Barbarossa,” Hitler’s meticulously planned attack on the Soviet Union. “The shooting, it was so fast, that wherever we ran, they were before us,” remembers Samuel. Although his family did not want to pull up roots, they encouraged Samuel to flee the Nazis. Hunted and scared, he barely outpaced the rapidly advancing German troops. Sometimes he travelled alone, sometimes with other equally desperate refugees heading east into the Soviet interior. Usually they walked, but occasionally they were fortunate enough to train heading east. Food and water were scarce, money nonexistent. Samuel became so filthy that he did not want to remove his socks to wash them lest they disintegrate. “We never stayed, just running,” he said. Samuel passed through Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Stalingrad, and Kubisov, not stopping until he reached Tajikistan in Soviet Central Asia. Drafted into the Red Army in 1942 and sent to Stalingrad to dig ditches, he fell ill and was sent to labor on a collective farm instead.
In 1948, Samuel was finally able to return to Poland, only to discover that his entire family had been murdered. “I couldn’t find the house where I was raised. It was a mountain of stones. I couldn’t find anything.” He remained in Poland until 1950 and then went to Paris to join an uncle in the fur business. In July 1955, Samuel came to Houston, where another uncle, Sydney Kalman, had settled. Although he did not speak a word of English when he arrived, Samuel started his own fur business in 1957. Over the years, his elegant showroom and dedication to quality and personal service attracted many celebrity customers. He also found time for charitable work, serving as a longtime board member of the Prevention of Blindness Society and supporting and raising funds for the Cancer League, the Houston Opera, the Heart Association, and many other organizations. He and his wife Pantipa, have a daughter Christina.
Parents:
David Schichtman, d. 1925
Nesia Spritzer Schichtman, d. Belzec or Rawa Ruska, 1942