Irvin Fishbein, World War II Army translator who helped Holocaust survivors, dies at 101

Jacques Kelly, Baltimore Sun
·3 min read

Irvin Fishbein, an attorney who during World War II used his translation skills to aid Holocaust survivors, died of congestive heart failure April 27 at his Baltimore County home. He was 101.

Born in East Baltimore, Irvin Louis Fishbein was the son of Russian immigrants Joseph Fishbein and Bessie Seidman.

His mother was a seamstress and his father a house painter. He grew up with his family as it moved back and forth between Baltimore and New York City. He earned a degree at the City College of New York with honors.

Mr. Fishbein enlisted in the Army, serving in both World War II and the Korean War. He held the rank of first lieutenant and worked in intelligence and military government in Germany. He used his fluency in Yiddish to provide assistance to Holocaust survivors who were unable to return home and were in displaced persons camps in countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy.

He reenlisted and did a brief tour with the Army during the Korean War.

In June 1953 he married Irma Beverly Cohn, the daughter of Nathan Cohn, a downtown Baltimore hosiery mill part owner, and Ethel Josephs Cohn, a Peabody Conservatory pianist and saxophone player. They were married at the old Belvedere Hotel in Mount Vernon.

They met on a blind date and eventually settled at 110 Slade Avenue in Pikesville.

As a young man, Mr. Fishbein became a certified public accountant and was a graduate of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

He established a law and accounting practice in an office in downtown Baltimore. He worked in the Knickerbocker building and shared an office with Leon A. Rubenstein, at the time a City Council member.

In the early 1980s Mr. Fishbein moved his practice to Pikesville where he was joined by his daughter, Debra Fishbein Holzman. Ms. Holzman took on the accounting practice while he continued the law office.

Mr. Fishbein was the 2002 to 2004 president of Beth Tfiloh Congregation and a past president of the Hebrew Free Loan Association and the old Jewish Convalescent Home.

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“Irvin was the quintessential gentleman,” said Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg, rabbi in residence at Beth Tfiloh in Pikesville. “He was a man of honesty, character and commitment. He lived by those principles. It was a matter of practicing what you preached and he practiced.

“Like King Solomon, he found grace and good favor in the eyes of God and his fellow man,” the rabbi said.

He was also the chair of the legal division of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore; a member of the Israel Bond board; a board member of the Baltimore Council of Orthodox Congregations; a lawyer for Chimes, which advocates for people with disabilities; and a member of the Levindale Hebrew and Geriatric Center board.

Mr. Fishbein also served as a volunteer interviewer for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and conducted video interviews with Holocaust survivors.

Survivors include his four daughters, Joan Fishbein Feldman, Debra “Debi” Holzman and Ruth Levenson, all of Baltimore, and Ellen Fishbein, of Vienna, Virginia; eight grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren. His wife, Irma Beverly Cohn Fishbein, died in 2006.