From Ohio State Alumni Magazine
Growing up, Linda Kass knew she was a first-generation American. But like most kids, she didn’t think too much about her parents’ prior lives. They were simply Mom and Dad.
As Kass entered adulthood and asked more questions, a fuller picture of Aurelia “Rela” Rosaminer Stern and Ernest “Ernie” Stern ’47 began to emerge, complete with dramatic accounts of resilience and survival. As a Jewish girl growing up in Eastern Poland, Rela and her family survived the Holocaust thanks to a Catholic neighbor who built a bunker for them under his barn. After World War II, Rela spent two years studying medicine in Vienna and then immigrated to the United States, eventually arriving in Columbus, Ohio, to begin graduate studies in bacteriology at Ohio State.