Maurice (Moshe) Enright (Unreich) – Rescued Children post World War II
Maurice (Moshe) the second oldest sibling was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (1903 – 1977). He worked in the family business of supplying bristles and animal hair for brushes and upholstery. Sometime around 1931 he moved to Tel Aviv, where he opened an import/export business. He married Sylvia Jacobson of Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1936. He moved to New Jersey where he headed an animal hair and bristle firm, just like in Bratislava and left his business during the war to help with rescuing children from Europe.
Maurice was active in Jewish communal affairs, especially those affiliated with the Poale Agudath Israel. After the close of World War II, he traveled to Europe three times between 1946 and 1948 as a representative of the Vaad Hatzala and the Rescue Children organizations. Vaad Hatzala was an orthodox Jewish relief organization established in 1939 initially to provide funds for rabbis and religious students in war-torn Europe and to work for their emigration. He was also one of the executive members of Rescue Children, Inc. and also adopted the children himself as well as other members of the organization.
Maurice is credited for helping to rescue many children during and after the Holocaust and place at least 100 Jewish children or orphans into new homes. The famous story is covered in a courageous documentary called “René and I” and tells the story of Irene Hizme (birthname Guttmann) and her twin brother René Slotkin, Czech Jews sent to Auschwitz at age six. The siblings survived three years in the camp, where they were among the 3,000 twins experimented on by Josef Mengele and other Nazi staff. Of those twins, only 160 survived.
Maurice and his wife Sylvia had two natural children Aviva and Elizabeth. Moshe adopted one of the children he helped saved from the children orphans, her name was Judith Enright Reifer, or as he named her Judy and she was an orphan found in Poland and brought back to the United States with Maurice.
Much thanks and gratitude to his Maurice's daughter Judith Enright Reifer for sharing her father's inspirational story of his remarkable accomplishments.
