Simon Strauss was born in a small village near Hanau, Germany in 1917. “My family lived there probably for centuries,” he says. “To the best of my knowledge some of my relatives are buried in a cemetery in Hanau which was founded in 1606.” Given their deep roots in Germany, it was only natural that initially his family underestimated the Nazi threat. Simon’s father had fought proudly for Germany in World War I and he instilled a firm sense of patriotism in his three sons.
Although the Nazis systematically stripped the German Jews of their civil rights and crippled them economically, when Simon finished his schooling he was able to find a job in a large international export house, where he worked until 1938. That November, the Nazis unleashed a violent attack against the Jews, desecrating synagogues, destroying Jewish businesses, and arresting Jewish men by the hundreds. Simon was at work when they caught him in their net. “The Nazis pulled in, lined up all the Jewish employees of the company, and the non-Jews pointed out everybody who was Jewish,” he remembers.
Sent to the concentration camp of Buchenwald, he endured bitter cold and meager rations that left him constantly weak and hungry. He was routinely forced to watch the guards beating his fellow prisoners. Simon tried hard not to attract the attention of his captors, “because if you were visible, you were dead.” While he was in Buchenwald, Simon’s mother worked feverishly to find a haven for him. Eager to rid Germany of its Jewish population, the Nazis generally released inmates who could prove they had permission to enter another country. Finally, after more than six months in captivity, Simon was freed. He traveled via Belgium to England. In 1940 he arrived in America and settled in Houston. Thoughts of his mother, who had helped all three of her sons escape only to remain behind in Germany, tormented him. Despite his tireless efforts, he was unable to save her. She perished in Europe.
When the United States entered World War II, Simon proudly fought for his adopted country. “I personally felt good about it, to do my part to destroy Hitler,” he says. After the war, he returned to Houston and established himself as a businessman, distributing coffee products and janitorial supplies. He was a member of Congregation Beth Yeshurun and served as a docent at Holocaust Museum Houston. He and his wife, Miriam, raised three children, Gary, Deirdra, and Nadine.