More detail on this person: Stanley Minkinow October 6, 1932 - August 29, 2020 Obituary Stanley Minkinow, a longtime Huntsville businessman and philanthropist joined his wife Doris in heaven on 29 August 2020. He was surrounded by his family as he quietly departed. Stan began life far away from his beloved USA in Lodz, Poland on 6 October 1932. The Nazi invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 interrupted his first day of school. His parents hid their Jewish identity until betrayed by a local, and the Gestapo arrested them on 13 January 1942. Young Stan and his parents were forced into the Lodz Ghetto where they remained until the Nazis transported them to the infamous Warsaw Ghetto. There, Stan encountered starvation, brutality and death on a daily basis. He dreamed of surviving and living in the USA, where all people were free and equal to one another, and where he'd never have to be afraid. Things became more desperate in the Warsaw Ghetto as the Nazis deported other family members and friends to the nearby death camps, so Stan's father hatched a daring plan to escape. Disguised as non-Jews, and with help from outside the Ghetto, Stan, along with his parents, bravely stepped through the Nazi SS checkpoint to freedom. Had they been discovered; it would have meant instant execution for the three of them. The family assumed false identities for the remainder of the war in a house prepared in advance by Stan's father. From there, they continued the fight as members of the free Polish Resistance. Additional brutality and deprivations arrived with the Soviet Red Army occupation, making it time for another, audacious escape from tyranny and death. In 1945, Stan's father convinced a Soviet army squad to hijack military vehicles and defect with them to the American zone in Berlin. The journey ended in a shootout with the Soviet troops guarding the checkpoint, and protection by the US military the instant they rolled into the American Zone. Stan spent more than a year in a displaced person's camp in southern Germany, where he resumed studies that were interrupted by the Nazi invasion. In 1951, while waiting for a train in a small German village, eighteen-year-old Stan saw a recruiting video for the U.S. Army. Though speaking almost no English, Stan jumped at the opportunity when he learned that he could earn American citizenship through honorable service. Soon after joining the U.S. Army, Stan was sent to Airborne school, and then to elite, Special Forces training. While at Fort Bragg, Stan attended a USO mixer where he asked Doris, his future wife and love of his life, to dance the rhumba. Later that night after he returned to the barracks, he told his fellow GIs that he'd danced with Marilyn Monroe. Stan served as a Cold Warrior with the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) stationed in Bad Tolz, Germany. From there, he entered Officers' Candidate School and earned his gold lieutenant's bars. Always looking to advance, Stan became an Army Aviator, and he served two tours flying both fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft in combat during the Vietnam War. Among his many decorations, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross, five Bronze Stars, and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. Stan retired from the U.S. Army as a Major at Redstone Arsenal in 1978, and soon established Alexander's Jewelry (named in honor of his father) located on South Memorial Parkway. A Huntsville fixture for several decades, Alexander's Jewelry was known as somewhere to acquire fine estate jewelry, a place to go for a kind ear, and as a business that generously supported charitable causes. Stan was a member of the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce, and he often spoke at local schools, businesses, and at the National War College on his Holocaust experience. His interview by the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation can be seen at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and his story is featured at the Birmingham Holocaust Education Center in Birmingham and was read aloud on the U.S. Senate floor and into the Congressional Record by Senator Jeff Sessions. Stan believed in the innate good of people and cared about everyone. Kind and gentle, he was generous to many causes, loved animals, was a romantic who liked to dance, loved his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchild and his country above all else, and was a warrior who put his life on the line in defense of the USA and his fellow citizens. He was adamant about doing all that he could to ensure a human disaster like the Holocaust he experienced would never again stain humanity. Doris Elaine Minkinow, his precious wife of 65 years, preceded him on 29 January 2018, as did his father, Alexander Nikonorow of Kaiserslautern, Germany and his mother, Sophia Minkinow of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is survived by three adult children, Kim Anna Minkinow (U.S. Army Veteran) of Huntsville, Lieutenant Colonel (USAF, retired) Ted H. Minkinow of Huntsville, and Colonel (U.S. Army, retired) Amy Minkinow Frisk of Evergreen Colorado, and their spouses: Kim's husband, Kirby Wayne Gaudin (U.S. Army Veteran), Ted's wife, Nikki Smith Minkinow, and Amy's husband, Colonel (U.S. Army, retired) Joseph Thomas Frisk, eight grandchildren: Anna Kathleen Minkinow, Marc Phillip Gaudin, Elena Gaudin Moats, Sophia Addie Minkinow, Sadie Elaine Minkinow, Stan Alexander Minkinow, Roman Olek Minkinow, and Anabelle Blue Minkinow, and grandchildren's spouses: Jiahua Lee and Patrick Neil Moats, and one great-grandchild, Samuel Alexander Moats. A graveside service, open to everyone, will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, September 3rd at Maple Hill Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the Huntsville Hospital Foundation (please specify Hospice) at (256) 265-8077 or https://www.huntsvillehospitalfoundation.org.
Burial information: Maple Hill Cemetery
This information was last updated 12/15/2022
Please send additions or corrections to: HQ@vhpa.org VHPA Headquarters
Return to the Helicopter Pilot DAT name list
Return to VHPA web site
Date posted on this site: 03/10/2024
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association