Irving Bienstock, Holocaust survivor, WWII veteran, dies in Charlotte at age 98
Irving Bienstock of Charlotte was tireless in his mission to never let people forget the Holocaust, his rabbi said Wednesday.
Bienstock, a World War II veteran who died at age 98 on Monday, told his story of surviving the Holocaust to thousands of Charlotte-area children as a leader of the Butterfly Project at Levine Jewish Community Center.
The project educates students about the dangers of hatred and bigotry and the importance of standing against all forms of prejudice.
Bienstock became more open in retirement about his experiences, Temple Israel Rabbi Michael Wolk told The Charlotte Observer in a phone interview before Bienstock’s funeral Wednesday morning.
He worked at Vanguard Supreme Knitting Machines for 50 years, including after he and his wife of 69 years, the late Lillian Levine Bienstock, moved to Charlotte in 1975.
At the service, Wolk said, “We are all mourning this gentle, dignified man whose quiet strength shaped this community. Through his stories, his faith and his steadfast presence, he taught generations what it means to remember, persevere and to live with dignity.”
That some people still deny the Holocaust that killed six million Jews “upset him a lot,” Wolk told the Observer, and inspired him to tell his story.
Surviving Kristallnacht, the night of Nazi violence
Bienstock was 12 when he awoke to a strange light, opened a curtain and saw a synagogue burning across the street from his family’s apartment in Dortmund, Germany, he told the Observer in 2008.
It was Nov. 9, 1938, the night of Nazi violence known as Kristallnacht, when Nazi troops murdered scores of German and Austrian Jews, destroyed 200 synagogues and looted 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses. Another 70,000 Jews — mostly men — were rounded up for concentration camps.
Nazis broke glass and plates in his family’s apartment and carved up feather mattresses.
“I thought we were going to die that night,” Bienstock said.
Because the Nazis were rounding up Jewish men, Bienstock’s father, William, an accountant, fled to Belgium. Irving and sister, Sylvia, remained behind with their mother, Ida.
“‘You are supposed to protect us,’“ Bienstock said his mother told a Dortmund police officer who accompanied the Nazi troops who stormed the family’s apartment on Kristallnacht.
“And the policeman said: ‘You dirty Jew, we want you out of Germany,’“ Bienstock said.
Weeks later, after the borders were closed, Ida Bienstock boarded a train for Holland with his sister. His mom didn’t want to risk smuggling two children from the country, so she left Irving at the apartment, he said.
Two weeks later, his mom took Irving on a train to the border. She got off the train and told Irving to stay, but the Germans let him pass, he said.
He reunited with his sister in Holland. Weeks later, his mother hired a man to smuggle her to Belgium, where she reunited with her husband.
Ida’s brother in New York sponsored William Bienstock, who immigrated to the U.S. in June 1939. William persuaded a stranger to sponsor his wife and children, who boarded a ship to New York on April 6, 1940, a month before the Germans invaded Holland.
Bienstock served in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division during World War II.
“It was a miracle,” he told the Observer in 2008 about surviving the Holocaust. “We were a few of the lucky ones. My grandmother, my uncles and cousins, they all died in the concentration camps.
“When there are some who say the Holocaust never happened, we can’t let the world forget,” he said.
Faith and gratitude guided Holocaust survivor’s life
For Bienstock’s longtime service and contributions to the Jewish community, Temple Israel recognized him with its prestigious Shofar Award.
At Bienstock’s funeral, Rabbi Wolk said Bienstock carried forward the memory of “that terrifying night” of Kristallnacht, “refusing to let it be forgotten.”
“He was scared of the dangers of hatred, of antisemitism, xenophobia, and telling his story was his way of fighting those fears,” Wolk said.
And “the twin sparks that animated his life — faith and gratitude — hand-in-hand were his guiding lights until the very end.”
This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 5:00 AM.