Tamar Ezekiel Granor can’t remember when she didn’t know the sentence “my mother’s parents died in a concentration camp.” She remembers childhood nightmares involving Nazis and trains.
Her mother, Ruth Rosenfeld Ezekiel, was born in Adelsheim, Germany, in 1930, the middle of five children. When the school in Adelsheim closed to Jewish students, Ruth and her two older sisters were sent first to Heilbronn, and later to Aachen to go to school. In each case, they lived with aunts.
After Kristallnacht, Ruth and her older sisters were sent to England on the Kindertransport. Their younger sister followed them a few months later. They each lived with different foster families, but an aunt in London helped keep them in touch with each other. Their parents and only brother were exiled to a concentration camp in France in 1940. Their brother came to the United States in 1941, where he was raised by one of several uncles living in the Washington, DC area. Their parents were sent to Auschwitz in 1942 and were murdered on arrival.
After the war, the sisters came to the United States, sponsored by their uncles. There, they were reunited with their brother. The four sisters lived together; the two oldest worked, while Ruth and their younger sister finished school. Ruth was the first in the family to attend college. Just before her graduation, she married David Ezekiel, whose mother was an immigrant and whose father’s family had deep American roots.
Ruth and David moved several times as David completed his education. Tamar, their middle child, was born in Houston, TX. The family moved to Philadelphia in the early 1960s. Tamar was educated in the Philadelphia public schools and is a graduate of Girls High. She received bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
Tamar is a professional software developer, running Tomorrow’s Solutions, LLC from her home. She is also a longtime volunteer for a number of organizations. She and her husband, Marshal, served as co-Presidents of the Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia from 2004 to 2018. Tamar and Marshal have two adult sons.
