By Nicole Hamilton
Enquirer staff writer

AMBERLEY VILLAGE - Edward Carter was 17 when the Nazis invaded his hometown of Bytom, Poland. He was sent to a concentration camp in Austria.

He escaped the camp, but was captured by Russian troops and imprisoned in Siberia for two years.

Freed in 1943, he joined the Polish Army, where he served on the eastern front, Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan, and was treated for an illness in England. By the time he returned to Poland, after the war in 1945, he learned 85 of his family and relatives had been killed.

"He came here (to Cincinnati) as a survivor," said his daughter, Suzanne H. Carter of Delray Beach, Fla. "He taught us how to be appreciative and to never take anything for granted. Because what you have today may be gone tomorrow."

Mr. Carter, who was born Edmund Wasserberger, died Saturday at Hospice of Cincinnati in Blue Ash from complications of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. The longtime Amberley Village resident was 83.

"I was lucky to survive the war. I didn't have anybody, and I saw what misery people go through," Mr. Carter told the Enquirer in 1986. "I was strong and I survived."

He spent two years in Czechoslovakia waiting for his visa so he could join his brother-in-law, the late Gustave Carter, in Cincinnati. He moved here in 1948.

Mr. Carter worked first for B&B Electric and then went to General Electric's Evendale plant in 1955.

Four years later, after saving $5,000, Mr. Carter opened The Lite House, a lighting fixture store on Montgomery Road in Silverton. He later opened a second store in Cherry Grove. "No one in the family is afraid to roll up their sleeves and work," his daughter said. "He left a legacy of a strong work ethic, and that working hard and getting an education was the most important things you could do."

In 1986, he bought B&B Electric and renamed it Carter Electric. The company is now closed.

His wife, Ellen, who fled Germany before the war, died in 1984.

Besides his daughter, other survivors include three sons, Robert of Indian Springs, Martin of Boca Raton, Fla., and David of Cleveland; and seven grandchildren.

Service will be at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at Weil Funeral Home, 8350 Cornell Road, Symmes Township.

Graveside service will follow at Hirsh Hoffert Cemetery, Price Hill.

Memorials may be made to the American Parkinson's Disease Association, Cincinnati Tri-State Chapter; 165 W. Galbraith Road, Suite 218, Cincinnati, OH 45216.

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E-mail nhamilton@enquirer.com