Walter Mielziner, a brilliant aerospace engineer who narrowly escaped the Holocaust that claimed his family, passed away Nov. 6, 2010, in Denver.
Rabbi Steven Foster officiated at the Nov. 9 service held at Temple Emanuel. Interment followed at Emanuel Cemetery. Arrangements were made by Feldman Mortuary.
Walter was a truly special man, said Ruth Epstein, his dear friend since 1989.
He left his family when he was very young, never to see them again. Yet he persevered and gained respect and recognition as an aerospace engineer.
Mr. Mielziner was born May 26, 1921, in Markranstaedt, Saxony, west of Leipzig, Germany. His parents owned a large department store until it failed in 1934 due to Nazi persecution.
Trained in agriculture at the Jewish Emigration Farm School in eastern Germany from 1936-1939, he fled to England in the spring of 1939 and arrived in the US in 1940.
From 1942-1946, Mr. Mielziner served with the US Army.
In 1945, he obtained permission from the Soviet High Command to travel to Leipzig to search for his parents and sisters. He learned that they perished near or in Maidanek Concentration Camp.
Mr. Mielziner received a BS in electrical engineering from Columbia University in 1949 and earned an MS in engineering from the University of Buffalo in 1953.
He married Trudi Harburger Kohn, a Holocaust survivor, in 1948. She passed away in 1989. The couple did not have children.
From 1949-1986, Mr. Mielziner was an aerospace engineer with Link Aviation, Bell Aircraft, Stanley Aviation and Martin Marietta.
At Marietta, he took a lead position with the Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and Viking Mars Landing Spacecraft programs.
Mr. Mielziner was a docent at the Denver Art Museum, tutored at Volunteers of Americas Home for Abused and Homeless Women and George Washington High and helped organize annual food distribution programs with the VOA.
A member of Temple Emanuel, Jewish War Veterans of the USA and the Denver Lyric Opera Guild, he was an associate member of Hadassah.
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Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
