Simon Steil

Simon Steil, son of Eliza and Adolph Steil, brother of Marck Steil passed away on Friday, December 27th, 2024 at his apartment in Reston, VA. He is survived by his sons Evan, Alex, and Doug, daughter in laws Linda, Salta, and Amy; grandchildren Rebeccah (Levy), Benjamin, Michaela, Aaron, Matthew, Elissa, Janna, and grandson in law Roy Levy; great grandchildren Yakov and Mimi Levy. He was preceded in death by his wife Joan Steil and his eldest son Adam Steil.
Simon was born on May 4, 1938, in Antwerp, Belgium. He was a hidden child of the Holocaust as his parents, brother, and Aunt were deported and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz in the early 1940's. He survived by the kindness of strangers who risked their lives to hide him during the war. In 1948 (after WWII) he was taken to Jewish orphanages first in Brussels then in Antwerp. The Red Cross identified relatives (Great Aunt and Uncle) of his living in NYC with the help of family friends and in 1950 he travelled on the SS Volendam to New York City. He carried only a few clothing items and his bicycle.
He lived on Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School and worked at the original Nathans in Coney Island. After high school he moved out of his Great Aunt and Uncles home and into the 92nd Avenue YMHA. He attended and graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic University with a BS in Engineering. He took many courses towards his MS in Engineering, but when he fell in love with his future wife his plans changed, and they quickly started a family after getting married in August of 1962.
They had 4 children together in a mere 6 ½ years and moved around from NY to FLA to MA to NY to PA to VA. He was employed mostly by the US Government worked on many missile and other weapons systems programs such as the Cruise Missile, Hawk, Stinger, and Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars) as a Lead Engineer. He also worked for large US Defense Contractors. He retired from the US Government in the early 2000's and built a home on the water in Montross, VA.
He was involved in the planning and opening of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and donated items. He was contacted by Steven Spielberg's production team about documenting his history involving the Holocaust and in 1996 he recorded hours of "witness" testimony as what happened and when and how he came to survive such horrific events. In 2020, after years of detailed genealogical research he published his biography titled "Have you Counted the Stars" which he was very proud of.
Before he retired he completed his MA in Education from George Mason University and went on to complete all of his coursework except for his theses for his PhD in Education from GMU. After retirement he did not stop working; as he was a substitute teacher in Westmoreland County and Loudoun counties and taught subjects as diverse as Math, Science, French, History, and Civics. He was a beloved substitute teacher and when they learned of his own history he would go around to classrooms as a gest speaker about his experience in and around WWII and the Holocaust.
He was also enormously proud of his years of service to the US Air and Space Museum (Udvar Hazy) as a docent as he was well versed in the many aerial platforms and weapons systems on display at the museum.
Even at 85 years old he was an avid traveler and spent over a month in the summer of 2023 in Belgium and Germany with his sons and their families as his family were memorialized with Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) markers at his childhood home in Antwerp, Belgium. He will also soon be memorialized by having a Stolpersteine in his name next to his family's.
Services entrusted to Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.