CLAYTON, NY —Â Â Jozef J. Gorczynski, 91, died Sunday, Feb. 7, 2021, at Samaritan Medical Center, Watertown, where he had been a patient for one day.
Jozef was born Jan. 31, 1930, in Poland, on his mother’s birthday, the son of Jan and Jozefina Kujawa Gorczynski. He had two years of elementary education when German soldiers closed the school. A short time later, he was taken by the Nazis to a work camp in Germany called Rodenburg on der Taube, where he became a Holocaust survivor. Lying about his age, when he was 16, he worked for a Polish company protecting a U.S. Airforce base in France as a patrol officer and gate keeper.
In 1961, he married the former Gertrude Lutz. She passed away in 1985.
On March 4, 1998, he married the former Renate Eberle in Germany.
Jozef worked for 49 years on the Ramstein Air Force base in Germany, including 29 years as Manager of the General Canon Hotel, where all the generals, high ranking military officers, and NATO officers attended meetings.
He was fluent in four languages. Jozef and his wife traveled extensively around Europe.
Jozef came to the United States in 2010, where he moved to Clayton.
Surviving besides his wife, Renate, is his children from his first wife, Angelika of Florida, and Monika of Germany; five stepchildren, Margaret Robinson of Georgia, Andreas M. Bartlett of Wallkill, N.Y., Steven R. Bartlett of Dexter, Renee L. Patterson of Georgia, and Ingrid Bartlett of Watertown; seven grandchildren; six great grandchildren; a sister, Wanda Mucha of Poland; nieces and nephews.
A brother, Zygmund, died in 2013 in Poland.
There will be no services at this time.
A burial will be held in the spring in Clayton Cemetery.
Arrangements are with the T.R. Jetty Funeral Home in Clayton.
Condolences can be made at trjetty.com