Liana Ornstein

In Loving Memory of Liana Ornstein 4/21/1928 – 3/21/2025
Liana passed away, quietly, in her sleep on the evening of Friday, March 21, 2025. She was born on April 21, 1928 in Brno, Czechlosvakia, the second of two children of Ernst and Edith Wagner Ornstein. She and her family lived in the historical Moravian region of the country. Her father was an expert engineer in the textile industry, serving as a textile mill director in Brno.
In early 1939, he and her brother moved to Lithuania for work while she and her mother remained in Brno. On March 15th of that year, German forces invaded and occupied the Czech provinces of Bohemia and Moravia. Then two days later, ten year old Liana watched from a window in her family's villa as German tanks rolled through the streets of Brno. Soon after, her mother left for Lithuania leaving her in the care of her grandfather. Out of fear of persecution of the Jewish people, her family sought to get her out of the country but until travel documents could be arranged she could not leave. Two weeks before World War II broke out, arrangements were made and she traveled through Germany with an escort hired by her grandfather and was, finally, reunited with her family at the Lithuanian border.
As situations with the war progressed, her parents decided they needed to leave Lithuania. Her father's nephew, Francis Lederer had immigrated to the United States and became a famous film and stage actor. He sponsored their immigration to the United States. Initially, the family would have to travel to Japan and the trip took them through Siberia on the Siberian Express Railroad to Moscow. There they boarded a freighter destined for Japan. Upon arriving in Japan, the family spent eight months living in Kobe. While living there, her parents learned that due to the US entering the war, the documents her first cousin had arranged could not be used for immigration to the United States. Her father decided to move the family to Shanghai, China because, at that time, documents were not needed for entry. The family, along with 20,000 Jewish refugees, had to live in a Jewish ghetto where they remained until the end of WW II.
At the end of the war in 1945, Liana's father moved the family to Argentina where he continued work in the textile industry. However, because of the unacceptance of Jewish people, her father had to pretend the family was Catholic so that he could find work to provide for his family. During their years in Argentina, the family was, again, fearful for their lives due to ongoing revolutionary conflicts.
Soon after her father's passing in 1951, Liana was, finally, able to obtain a visa to immigrate to the United States. Having worked in Buenas Aires for RKO Pictures, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age, she was able to move to California and work in the studio's secretarial pool. After several years working in this industry, Liana transitioned to New York City and began her career with Sheraton Hotels and Resorts. With Sheraton, she served as an executive secretary and accompanied her boss in a transfer to Mexico City, Mexico.
After living for a number of years in Mexico City, Liana left the hotel industry and, upon returning to the US, settled in Houston, Texas. In March 1972, she began a long career working for MD Anderson Cancer Center. Upon retiring from MD Anderson, Liana moved to San Antonio, Texas for a slower paced life with less traffic and more affordable living.
Liana was proceeded in death by her parents and her brother, Peter. She will always be remembered by her many friends as someone who had a strong inner strength that was, most likely, forged from the many experiences she lived through in her early life and a "spiritual resistance" through her Jewish faith.
A memorial service in her honor will be held on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 at 2:00pm at Funeral Caring USA, 2621 Mossrock, San Antonio, Texas 78230
Liana will live on through her 1996 recording as a part of the oral history project by the Holocaust Education Center and Memorial Museum of Houston https://hmh.org/survivors/liana-ornstein/
Ornstein*, Liana - Holocaust Museum Houston Lester and Sue Smith Campus 5401 Caroline Houston, TX, 77004. (713) 942-8000 info@hmh.org