Auschwitz Survivor, Vietnam Veteran Will Finally Be Able to Take a Bite Out of Life : Surgery Brings Smiles to 2 Sad Faces

Since he was liberated from Auschwitz 42 years ago, Ed Koslowski has tried to forget about his concentration camp experiences.

And, for the most part, he says he has managed to put it all behind him, except for one thing that confronts him every time he looks in the mirror or sits down to a meal.

Koslowski has no teeth.

Most were yanked out with pliers, without anesthesia, while he was in the camp. Until last week, it appeared that Koslowski, 62, would have to continue to endure a diet of soft foods such as cottage cheese and eggs because the crude extractions deformed his lower jaw and made wearing conventional dentures impossible.

But Koslowski and Butch Emord, a Vietnam veteran who also cannot wear dentures, will be able to wear artificial teeth comfortably for the first time in years because of free surgery performed last week by the Center for Restorative Oral Surgery, a new branch of Valley Presbyterian Hospital. The center includes a charitable arm that plans to provide the implants for several needy people each year. The program will benefit those with financial and medical needs, especially those who have suffered hardships.

Surgeons donated their time, and other doctors provided materials so Koslowski and Emord, 42, could benefit from an expensive dental procedure pioneered in Sweden and introduced three years ago in the United States. They were the first recipients of the free surgery.

“Both men have both been through enough, with traumatic war experiences,” said Stanton Canter, one of the center’s three directors. “This treatment should change the quality of their lives forever.”

During the procedure, which costs $2,300 to $20,000, depending on the severity of the tooth loss, titanium screws are implanted in the jaw bone. Four to six months later, after the first set of screws bond with the bone tissue, additional screws are to be attached to serve as anchors for artificial teeth.

Doctors inserted two titanium screws in Koslowski’s lower jaw that will secure a dental plate. The procedure cost $10,000. Koslowski can be fitted with conventional dentures for the upper jaw by next summer.

Emord’s teeth began falling out from gum disease he says was brought on by his exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange in the war. In his operation, which cost $20,000, 11 screws were inserted in his upper and lower jaws.

Veterans benefits were of no help because Veterans Administration doctors do not perform the special surgery, and the government will not pay to have it done privately, Emord said.

Both men said their lives began to change as soon as they learned last month that they had been chosen for the operation.

Koslowski, a retired grocer, has begun to talk more about his experiences in Auschwitz and other camps, his wife Beatrice said. Until recently, she said, Koslowski “wasn’t verbal at all” about being forced in his early teens to leave his small Polish village and work in Nazi labor camps. His parents and siblings were killed in Treblinka.

“I get choked up when I get deep into it, so I wouldn’t speak up about it,” Koslowski said.

Koslowski now says “it’s a relief to talk about” the days when he hoarded a slice of bread, dug up turnips and scraped cooking pots to keep from starving. He said he cannot recall if the tooth extractions were painful, although he said he does remember being afraid to complain about having a toothache for fear he would be sent to a “clinic” and never return.

If Emord has kept quiet about his experiences, it’s only because he is an “oral invalid” whose speech is affected by his tooth loss, doctors say. Emord won a Purple Heart during the first of two tours of duty in Vietnam.

He began losing his teeth shortly after he was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1973. His jaw bones have shrunk to those of a 70-year-old man, a common problem among people who have lost their teeth.

To disguise the condition, Emord grew a beard, which he had to shave for the operation. He smiles with his lips closed.

Not a ‘Turn-on’

“I can’t even wear dentures to look pretty because they cut my gums, man,” Emord said. “Believe me, having no teeth isn’t exactly the biggest turn-on to women.”

But Emord said things began to look up when he learned he would be getting the implants, which he said he could not afford on his pay as a truck driver.

An old girlfriend is visiting him for the holidays. He is getting along better with his mother. And in six months, he’ll be able to bite into a Snickers bar and chomp on much-missed cashews.

Koslowski has a slightly different set of priorities.

“The first thing I’m going to do when this is all done is go over to Lawry’s and order prime rib,” Koslowski said.