When young Ignatz Issaacovitch sailed into New York Harbor in 1950, a U.S. immigration agent asked if he wanted to keep his name or change it to something more American.
“I’ll take an American name,” said the Czech-born Holocaust survivor. And so Ignatz Issaacovitch became Michael Lawrence, wasting no time in creating his American success story.
Lawrence died Jan. 11 in Walnut Creek from complications from pancreatitis. He was 78.
In his years in America, Lawrence built businesses in a variety of fields, from clothing to hotels to restaurants.
He had five children and 13 grandchildren. Given that most of his family died in Nazi concentration camps, Lawrence considered his children his greatest achievement in life.
That life began in a Czech village outside Prague. Lawrence was an only child, and enjoyed a relatively idyllic boyhood until the German invasion in 1939. At age 7, he lost his father to a Nazi roundup, and two years later he and the rest of his family were transported to the camps, including Auschwitz and Mauthausen.
Upon arriving at Auschwitz, as the frightened Jewish men and women lined up, Lawrence asked his mother, “Where do I go?”
“You’re not my son anymore,” she replied, according to Lawrence’s wife, Sandie. “You’re in God’s hands.”
Though only a young teen at the time, Lawrence had an instinct for survival. “By luck,” recalled his wife, “a spot in kitchen helped save him. It was a little warmer, and he could steal an extra potato now and then.”
After liberation, Lawrence tried to walk back to his homeland. He remembered his mother telling him not to eat too much when he was sick, so although emaciated, he resisted gorging, a fatal mistake made by many survivors.
Stuck in eastern Germany and ever resourceful, Lawrence dealt cigarettes and alcohol on the black market. He even brashly claimed ownership of an empty German castle. But with the Soviet’s grip tightening in the East, Lawrence made his way to England, where he worked in the garment industry and was taken in by a British family.
When the family relocated to America, Lawrence went along. Not yet 20, he started his life anew, arriving in New York with $80 in his pocket. He loved the city so much he stayed on for months. Eventually he took the train to California, working in a clothing factory. He met his first wife soon after, and once he’d saved enough money, he opened a pants factory. The business grew.
So did his family. Lawrence had three sons with his first wife, though the couple ended up divorcing. That ordeal cost him the business, but his luck turned again in 1966 when he met a young schoolteacher from Baltimore named Sandie Zubin.
“He could talk his way into anything,” she recalled. “His voice is similar to Henry Kissinger, an unmistakable accent. We married in July of 1967.”
Eventually they settled in the East Bay, living first in Piedmont, then Lafayette and finally Walnut Creek. Lawrence continued to found and build new businesses. But family remained the most important part of his life. The couple went on to have two daughters and, altogether, 13 grandchildren.
“He was larger than life,” said his daughter Denise Crevin. “He was very outgoing and social. I remember from early on we would go to a restaurant and he would automatically engage the hostess, the waitress, and find out about their lives. He had a gift for connecting with people and making them feel comfortable.”
At one point, the family lived in Israel and Spain for a year. Two of Lawrence’s sons lived on a kibbutz, and one of them served in the Israeli army. Being Jewish and maintaining a strong Jewish homeland meant a lot to him.
Yet he wasn’t religious. Lawrence would tell people he didn’t need to fast on Yom Kippur because he had “fasted for five years.” According to Crevin, he also liked to tell people, “The Nazis tried to wipe us out and look at me. I have five kids and they all married.”
Even with a houseful of kids, the family would often take in foreign exchange students. Fluent in six languages, Lawrence always kept the conversation going.
A stroke three years ago did not diminish his spirit. It’s a spirit that will never fade, according to those who knew and loved him best. “He was always exciting,” says Sandie Lawrence. “Not one of those 9-to-5 guys. It was an amazing life.”
Added Crevin, “For anyone who met him, he was not easily forgotten.”
Michael Lawrence is survived by his wife, Sandie Lawrence of Walnut Creek; his children, Brad Lawrence of Pleasanton; Benjie Lawrence of Melbourne, Australia; Dean Lawrence of Danville; Denise Crevin of Elk Grove; and Jessica Doigny of Concord; and 13 grandchildren. Donations can be made to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, P.O. Box 90988, Washington DC 20090-0988, or Yad Vashem, P.O. Box 91034, Jerusalem, Israel.