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SONIA ZYROFF
Sonia Zyroff passed away on April 29, in Palo Alto, California, at the age of
88. Sonia lived in Duluth for 50 years. For nearly a decade during the 1970's,
she appeared on KDLH on the "Town and Country'' show with her weekly
segment called "Sewing with Sonia''. She was known and loved by many
Duluthians, not only as a teacher of fashion design on TV and in local schools,
but also as a Jewish survivor of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II. She spoke
and educated on this subject throughout northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, and
was frequently interviewed by newspapers and television. Sonia was haunted
frequently by the nightmares of her Holocaust experience. For the first ten
years she lived in silent pain, unable to share her experience with Americans,
who either didn't believe her or were unable to empathize. In the last 30 years,
however, as information about the Holocaust became more widely disseminated and
discussed, she also became more vocal. She became a spokesperson for the
Holocaust, and was frequently invited to speak at schools and churches in the
Northland region. Because of her experiences as an immigrant, she opened her
heart and home to all newcomers to Duluth. When Russian refugees arrived in
Duluth during the 1970s, she immediately ran to assist them by serving as
translator, helping them get settled and providing them with financial
assistance. Sonia was born and grew up just outside the Polish town of Horochov,
now part of the Ukraine. She had a special talent for languages, and by the time
she was an adult, she could speak seven. When the Nazis invaded the Ukraine in
1941, Sonia was placed in a ghetto where she became a slave laborer in a tailor
shop. Her skills as a seamstress helped save her life. On the eve of the mass
extermination of the ghetto, Sonia made a harrowing escape. For two years she
was on the run and in hiding, always one step ahead of her pursuers. The rest of
her family was not as fortunate. One by one, she learned of the torture and
murder of her husband, child, both parents, four brothers and a sister. She
became the only Jewish survivor of her town. The Nazis knew this and made it
their obsession to capture her. She survived through the generosity of certain
righteous gentiles who risked their own lives to hide her. When the war ended
she met and married Alfred Zyroff, a resistance fighter who had escaped a Nazi
prison camp. In 1947, after two years in a refugee camp, the Zyroffs arrived in
Duluth, thanks to the sponsorship of Sonia's cousins and closest living
relatives, the Tesler, Winthrop and Gurovitch families, then living in Duluth.
In 1992, Sonia made a special return trip to the Ukraine to thank one of the
righteous gentile families that helped save her life. She also persuaded the
mayor of the town of Horochov to erect a monument on the mass grave to finally
acknowledge that 4000 Jewish people were buried there. Sonia was a talented
artist who won perennial awards for holiday decorations and costumes. She
created and modeled elegant women's fashions that were the center of attention
at many social affairs. She was also a wonderful old world cook, who could make
delicious ethnic foods from scratch. Sonia loved Duluth and her home on the 3800
block of East Superior Street. Despite the departure from Duluth in recent years
of most of her family and friends, Sonia was reluctant to leave. She made new
friends easily. She always praised the tolerance of the people of Duluth and
cherished their friendship, which she would contrast to the bigotry encountered
in her early life. But after her husband Alfred's death in 1995, Sonia's health
began to deteriorate. She moved to Palo Alto, CA in 1997 to be nearer her two
children. Sonia is survived by her son, Jack Zyroff, a neuroradiologist at the
Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, CA and her daughter, Judith Zyroff, an advertising
executive in San Francisco, CA. She has four grandchildren, Dena Zyroff of
Boston, MA, an architect; David Zyroff of Jerusalem, Israel, Adam Riff and
Daniel Riff of Palo Alto, CA, all students. She has one great-grandchild, Daphna
Esther Spira, now 11 months old. |