Bronia Roslawowski died last Wednesday. She was 88 years old and one of this city's great survivors. Not only of the restaurant industry in Kansas City -- Bronia and her husband, Mendel, who predeceased her, operated the M&M Bakery & Delicatessen at 1721 East 31st Street for many years -- but of the Holocaust. The Polish-born Bronia Kibel was imprisoned in several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, before being liberated by the U.S. Army. She chose Missouri as her destination when she emigrated to the United States in 1948, at age 27, because it was where President Harry Truman had been raised.
After moving to the United States, Bronia became a nurse, but she also frequently helped Mendel work in his bakery-and-sandwich shop at Prospect and 31st Street. The neighborhood children adored her.
The neighborhood around the bakery changed in the 1960s and got a little rougher. One day the business was robbed by a gunman, who stuck a pistol in Bronia's face.
The story goes that fearless Bronia put a doughnut in the robber's mouth and said, "Hitler couldn't kill Bronia. You can't, either." The young man ran out of the store.
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