Nathan Drew

Nathan Drew (originally Podruznik) was born in Lomza, Poland, then part of Imperial Russia, in 1912. Before World War 2, he was a gym teacher and later the principal of a Jewish religious school. He and his wife Helen survived the brutal Nazi occupation of Poland by posing as Christians. While members of the Polish underground, they lived openly in Warsaw and participated in the bloody rebellion against the Nazi regime, in 1944. They emigrated to the United States in 1946, settling in Manhattan. Soon after their arrival, Nathan dictated his memoir in Polish, but the document remained forgotten until after his death in 2006, aged 93.

Jerry Drew (Editor): is an attorney and professor of World Economic History at the University of Pennsylvania (retired 2019). He is Nathan and Helen’s son.