Stanley Steyer (known familiarly as Samek) was born in 1912 to Siegfried and Salomea. He was their first child; his sister Helena was born two years later. In 1919, the family moved to Salomea’s hometown–Kielce, Poland. Stanley attended both a private gymnasium (secondary school) for boys, and subsequently a public high school.
In 1932, Stanley enrolled at the Wysza Szkola Handlowa in Poznan, to study business and economics, and graduated in 1935 from the Faculty of Accounting and Business Administration. From 1935 through 1936 he took additional courses in Law, Economics, and Journalism at the University of Poznan. During his years as a student in Poznan, Stanley helped to organize a Zionist student group. At the same time, he held several jobs, including serving as the Poznan correspondent for the Warsaw Jewish newspaper “Nasz Przegląd.” In 1936, Stanley moved to Warsaw, the Polish capital, where he worked in an accounting firm and taught business courses.
In September 1939, the Nazis occupied Warsaw, and in 1940, they forced its Jewish inhabitants into a ghetto. In 1942, Stanley escaped the ghetto and lived on the so-called “Aryan” side of the city. He obtained false papers and lived under a false identity: Stanislaw Olgierd Sternikowski. During this time, Stanley organized a company that produced and distributed ersatz coffee made of chicory. He established ties with the Jewish underground in the Warsaw ghetto and was able to smuggle weapons and ammunition for the Warsaw ghetto fighters. At the same time, he used his business as a cover for hiding and supporting Jewish friends and family members.
In 1943, Stanley met Diana (Danuta) Kintzel, and they married a short time afterwards. Diana helped Stanley in all his clandestine activities, accompanying him everywhere. They were often on the run, with Stanley being pursued by the Gestapo. For this reason, in 1944, Stanley changed his name once again–this time to Stanislaw Krzeminski. Nevertheless, in July of that year, while delivering coffee products in the city of Tarnow, Stanley and Diana were arrested and imprisoned. During the month they were detained, both were tortured and beaten. Upon release, they went to a village near Cracow, where Diana had relatives, and they stayed there until liberation.
Antisemitic incidents continued in Poland after the war had ended, and by 1947, Stanley felt he could no longer live in Poland. His entire immediate family had been killed in the Holocaust. Stanley and Diana immigrated to the United States and, eventually, to Venezuela, where Stanley co-founded a prosperous zipper business. Stanley and Diana had three children: Krzysztof, who died in Poland at the age of 3 months; Thomas Mark Steyer, born in Poland, and Helen Sarah Steyer, born in the United States. Stanley passed away in Switzerland in 2002 and was buried in Tel Aviv.