Charles Cohn

Charles Cohn ObituaryObituary published on Legacy.com by Louis Suburban Chapel - Fair Lawn on Mar. 13, 2026.Charles Cohn passed away at 11:51pm on March 12, 2026. For a man who never took "no" for an answer, whose hard-to-resist determination carried him and everyone around him into adventures, the timing feels like a threshold: the moment before stepping across one more border.His story of survival began in Romania, where he was born on June 10, 1936, to Herman and Manea (née Litman). As a child, he survived the Holocaust with his parents in the ghetto of Chernivtsi, enduring several close calls and many border crossings as the family repeatedly rebuilt their lives.In many ways, Charles never met a border he didn't want to cross. He immigrated to Israel as a young man with his mother before they joined his uncles, Joe and Harry, in the Bronx, New York, in 1953.Charles became a mechanical engineer whose curiosity about how things worked never faded. During his career at Bendix, he helped design the inertial guidance platform used in the Saturn V rocket-the system that guided astronauts on their journeys to the Moon. When he retired, he kept working. He continued his journey with consulting and teaching: solar and wind energy-"hot air," he liked to joke.When he reached the US, he moved from the Bronx to Phoenix, back to the Bronx and eventually to Wayne NJ. During that time, he married his beloved wife Lucille and would undertake the difficult task of taking her across the borders of her native Brooklyn.His travels with his family included Israel, Europe, across the United States, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii, and Aruba and more. These adventures included his wife, his children, Lisa and Steve, but rarely just the immediate family. Charles loved nothing more than having the whole family together. He gathered his mother, his mother-in-law, aunts, uncles, cousins, a niece and nephew, and later his children's spouses and grandchildren. Trips to National Parks often meant long scenic drives punctuated by sudden stops so Charles could leap out of the car to photograph any beautiful scene that caught his eye. Any dinner at a beachside restaurant would have to wait until the sun had set for his photos.A passionate photographer, he filled his home with snapshots capturing a life of curiosity, resilience, and exploration. He believed deeply in the importance of seeing the world. He often urged his daughter to look up from her books and see what was outside. "Don't you want to see what's out there?" he would ask. Even if the answer was less than enthusiastic, that wouldn't stop him.Even at the end, Charles remained determined to negotiate with life itself. When a doctor asked whether he wanted to be resuscitated, Charles replied that they should keep him alive until he reached ninety-just 3 months away.Charles made it 3 months short of 90, and 9 minutes short of the next day. When he crossed his final border, he was negotiating with time itself to the last.Charles was predeceased by his beloved wife, Lucille Cohn (née Swoff). He is survived by his daughter, Lisa Cohn (Brian Barnes) and his son, Steve Cohn (Elisheva Cohn née Rovner) and his grandchildren Matan, Tali, and Mali Cohn.To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.