Heinz Rosner, 86, who escaped being thrown into a Nazi concentration camp with falsified papers that identified him as Catholic, died Monday, Oct. 2, of a heart attack in his home in Hyde Park. Mr. Rosner was born in Austria and raised in Poland. Though his mother was Jewish, his father was Catholic and was able to get false papers for Mr. Rosner and his brothers. With those papers, Mr. Rosner moved through central Europe, working at such odd jobs as reconstructing railroads bombed by the Allies during World War II. As he moved from country to country, he picked up languages such as Hungarian, Croatian and other Slavic tongues. His talent for languages would endure later in life when he would practice his fluency in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish with foreign scientists who visited the Hyde Park home of his son, an academic at the University of Chicago. After the war, Mr. Rosner trained as a chemical engineer and worked in the leather tanning and dyeing industry until he immigrated to New York City in the 1950s. He took on a new career as a digital electronics specialist until his retirement in 1979. He moved to the Hyde Park area in 1987. Survivors include his son, Robert; two brothers, Kurt and Herbert; and two granddaughters. Services were held Wednesday in New York City.
