Donation Tells Story of Survival, Family, and Memory

Six large cartons of clothing buttons had special meaning to long-time West Windsor resident Aron Arias. His father, Larry (Leb) Arias, a Holocaust survivor, had collected them over many years of working in the garment industry.

Some of the buttons from the Arias Collection will be featured at the New Jersey State Button Society show set to be held on Saturday, May 11, in Titusville. See NewJerseyStateButtonSociety.com for more details.

Originally Arias’ were meant to be part of a larger collection to be used for a mural commemorating the Holocaust victims of World War II at a planned Jewish Community Center in West Windsor.

Plans fell through due to financing issues, however, and the Jewish Community Center was never finished. The property and the structures that had been constructed were sold off, and it eventually became the Windsor Athletic Club, located on Clarksville Road.

When the Arias family made plans to move out of New Jersey (Arias recently moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida), it was time to find a new home for the buttons.

According to Lucille Dawson, a Stonebridge Button Club member, the thrilling acquisition of the Arias buttons began with an excited call from her daughter, Sally O’Grady.

“Mom does your button club want 15,000 buttons?” she asked.

Sally was at the Arias family’s garage sale. After learning about the worthy nature of what would be in store for the buttons, the family was happy to make the donation to the club, which is based at Stonebridge at Montgomery, a Continuing Care Retirement Community in Montgomery Township. It offers different levels of care, ranging from those who live independently to those in the assisted living, skilled nursing, and memory care sections.

The next thing Dawson knew, her daughter was at the Stonebridge door, unloading the cartons onto a cart, eager to see what, exactly, was in those boxes.

“We felt like we were opening a Treasure of the Sierra Madre or King Tut’s tomb,” Dawson said. The trove had all kinds of buttons: leather, plastic, synthetic polymer, metal and glass — the lifelong collection of Aron Arias’ father, Leb.

The Stonebridge Button Club belongs to the New Jersey State Button Society and the National Button Society. “Our slogan is ‘Create! Connect! Collect!’ said Elisabeth Fraser, club president.

“We meet twice monthly — once for a dinner and once in the art studio — to enjoy each other’s company and to study the history and manufacture of vintage buttons and find opportunities to use them in meaningful ways,” she said.

“We decided to use these special buttons to enhance the lives of residents who have moved to the assisted living and memory care areas,” said club member Hope Pepe. “We share our knowledge and love of buttons by hosting monthly Pink Lemonade and Button Art sessions. With art supplies and these buttons, we help them create all kinds of artistic crafts.”

Visitors to the New Jersey State Button Society show on May 11 will be able to take home leather coat buttons — some decorated by the Stonebridge Button Club — from the Arias collection.

The buttons tell the story of the Arias and Mieschonz families, who lived in Prznyasz, a small town north of Warsaw, Poland. With the invasion of Poland by the Germans in World War II, one fateful day German soldiers took away Leb’s mother and three of his siblings — never to be seen again. They ultimately died in the concentration camps. On their way back from visiting cousins in a neighboring town, Leb, a teenager, and his father, Philip, were close enough to view the happenings of that day, and found their way back to the woods, where they were discovered by Russian soldiers.

They were given a choice — to join the Russian army or be taken to a Russian work camp in Siberia.

“I think my father learned to be a tailor there,” said Arias.

After surviving five years under difficult conditions in Siberia, Leb and Philip were released to a refugee camp in Germany. Philip and Leb — who renamed himself Larry — eventually found their way to the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.

How Aron Arias’s father met his mother, Ruth Mieschonz, could be a story straight out of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” Both of their parents had grown up in that same small town of Prznyasz.

“My maternal grandfather, a skilled carpenter, left the town to seek work in Berlin, Germany, and began a career making furniture in the haberdashery business,” said Arias. “His girlfriend later followed him to Berlin, where they got married and had three children.

“Prior to things getting bad in Germany with the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, Mr. Mieschonz had, on several occasions, hosted a cousin and his son who came from London, England, for medical treatments in Berlin.”

The favor was gratefully reciprocated when the cousin, who owned a butter manufacturing business, helped get the whole Mieschonz family out of Germany before it was too late.

After the war, Ruth’s family went to America and settled in Brooklyn. Ruth’s father recognized that a newcomer, Philip Arias, listed in a Yiddish newspaper, was from his hometown in Poland. He had a daughter and Philip had a son, and the rest was history. “It’s miraculous that those two families both wound up in Brooklyn, and my parents wound up going on a date and ultimately married,” said Arias.

Working as a tailor in the garment district, Leb was promoted to be a foreman for a fake fur company, and later worked for a leather company in Staten Island, New York, which is how he wound up collecting excess sample buttons.

“My father was a workaholic who worked hard for many years to support his wife and three children,” Arias said. “When the garment district fell apart, and manufacturing moved overseas, he always found work, doing alterations for a local dry-cleaning business, a leather retail store, making fake fur coats and blankets, and doing alterations for family and friends. My family may not have had everything we wanted, but we always had a home and food on the table, and very loving and devoted parents.”

Arias, a CPA, graduated from SUNY Albany in 1983 and made his career in the luxury retail industry, working for such companies as Tiffany’s in the U.S. and Asprey, an English luxury house.

Now he is the CFO for a growing cosmetics device manufacturer and retailer based in Florida. He and his wife Caryn have two sons, Benjamin and Alex. His brother, Martin Arias, lives in West Windsor, and his sister, Susan Arias Weinman, is in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Except for a cousin, who survived a concentration camp, Leb (Larry) and his father, Philip, were the only direct family members that survived the Holocaust,” said Arias. “My father had never wanted to share his story of survival and his time in Siberia, so I don’t really know all of the details, but I’m sure it was a difficult time.

“It’s an interesting and courageous story, but unfortunately not a completely happy one, that I am sure left many scars, but a true tale of survival. As for the buttons — the more joy that can be spread with them, the better. I think that he would be happy to know that they are being used for a good cause.”

New Jersey State Button Society Spring Show, Union Fire Company and Rescue Squad, 1396 River Road (Route 29), Titusville. Saturday, May 11, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visitors can take home plain or decorated leather buttons from the Arias collection. Also offered are charmstring starter kits and a “bring a button take a button” basket. The NJSBS Fall Show takes place Saturday, September 14.

More information: ButtonsinNewJersey@gmail.com or 609-468-2195.