The Hidden® Child VOL. XXVII 2019 PUBLISHED BY HIDDEN CHILD FOUNDATION /ADL

DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

FROM HUNTED ESCAPEE TO FEARFUL REFUGEE: POLAND, 1935-1946 Anna Rabkin hen the mass slaughter of Jews ended, the remnants’ sole desire was to go 3 back to ‘normalcy.’ Children yearned for the return of their parents and their previous family life. For most child survivors, this wasn’t to be. As WEva Fogelman says, “Liberation was not an exhilarating moment. To learn that one is all alone in the world is to move from one nightmarish world to another.” A MISCHLING’S STORY Anna Rabkin writes, “After years of living with fear and deprivation, what did I imagine Maren Friedman peace would bring? Foremost, I hoped it would mean the end of hunger and a return to 9 school. Although I clutched at the hope that our parents would return, the fatalistic per- son I had become knew deep down it was improbable.” Maren Friedman, a mischling who lived openly with her sister and Jewish mother in wartime Germany states, “My father, who had been captured by the Russians and been a prisoner of war in Siberia, MY LIFE returned to Kiel in 1949. I had yearned for his return and had the fantasy that now that Rivka Pardes Bimbaum the war was over and he was home, all would be well. That was not the way it turned out.” Rebecca Birnbaum had both her parents by war’s end. She was able to return to 12 school one month after the liberation of Brussels, and to this day, she considers herself among the luckiest of all hidden children. In Hungary, Eva Nathanson had both wartime and postwar struggles, yet she too considers herself blessed for having lived a “relative- RESILIENCE IN THE LIVES OF ly successful and productive life.” TRAUMATIZED HOLOCAUST CHILD The least fortunate among us are those who have no prewar memory, and worse, SURVIVORS no knowledge of identity. This is so for Dr. Wladyslaw Sidorowicz, whose daughter Eva Fogelman, PhD Izabella Nagle continues her father’s ongoing search for his parents. Yet, despite all odds, all survivors featured here persisted, and thrived! 16 They had no choice! Michel Jeruchim states in the prologue of his memoir, “I have lived much longer than those early tumultuous years, but their effects have never escaped me. They loom A SURVIVOR’S AFFIRMATION OF LIFE large in my rational and irrational thoughts, in my interpretation of events, and in my Éva Paula Nathanson view of the world. Yet, they have not subdued me, or controlled every aspect of my life. After immigrating to the U.S, I adapted because I had to adapt.” We chose a photo of an 21 exuberant young Michel for the cover of this issue because it exemplifies the positive transformation for most hidden children. Eva Fogelman concludes, “The generation that survived the Holocaust as children DO YOU KNOW ME? has much to teach the mental-health profession about resilience. The lost childhood, the murder of one’s parents and siblings, can never be undone. The nightmares, post-trau- CONTINUED... matic stress disorder symptoms under conditions of stress, fear of abandonment, Izabella Nagle trust, anger at the persecutors and the passive bystanders will never fully disappear. 26 But these emotions have not impeded most child survivors from leading productive, satisfying, meaningful lives at work and maintaining satisfying intimate relationships.” Indeed, all our contributors have achieved a lifetime of fulfilment and success, and have most likely exceeded their postwar aspirations for ‘normalcy.’ THE SAVIORS Ingrid Kellerman-Kluger Rachelle Goldstein, editor 28 HIDDEN CHILD FOUNDATION/ADL 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-3560, © 2019 Anti-Defamation League (212) 885-7900 Fax 212-885-5869 BOOKS Vol. XXV E-mail: [email protected],

31 EDITOR Rachelle Goldstein ADVISOR Dr. Eva Fogelman

CO-DIRECTOR Rachelle Goldstein CO-DIRECTOR, DIRECTOR, SOCIAL SERVICES Carla Lessing DIRECTOR, FAMILY TRACING SERVICES Evelyne Haendel Cover Photo: Michel Jeruchim, riding a bike in Brooklyn, New York, around 1950 or 1951. DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

FROM HUNTED ESCAPEE TO FEARFUL REFUGEE: POLAND, 1935-1946 By Anna Rabkin

I am one of the lucky few who survived gained a new perspective on the struggle World War II in the formerly Polish city that I and all refugees and immigrants of Lvov. Of the 200,000 Jews who lived confront — adapting to new people and there, only 1,000 escaped the Nazis’ ethnic places, and trying to fit in. And eventual- cleansing. How did I escape death when ly, I had to accept that in all countries, to so many others perished? Part of the a greater or lesser extent, there is always answer, of course, is sheer luck; but also, the an unbridgeable difference between the gut-wrenching choice my parents made native-born and the newcomers. to smuggle my brother and me out of the On September 1, 1939, my comfort- ghetto, and the death-defying courage of able childhood ended. Hitler’s military a Catholic couple who protected us. machinery and hateful ideology rolled into After the war, committed organizations Poland. Divided into Russian and German Arthur and Anna Rose leaving from Gdynia, Poland, and kind people stepped up to help me sectors, Poland ceased to exist. My family for England. 1946. build a future. They created the foundation became refugees in their own country, I needed to adapt to my new circumstanc- and as has been for millions of displaced es, to strive for independence, and to dream people before and since, the years that fol- knowledge to land a job as a mechanic. of a stable life like the one I had before my lowed were marked by misery and serial We could get our meager rations. world was filled with hate and violence. escapes. Once the Russians established control Since September 1, 1939 until I settled Like thousands of frenzied refugees in Lvov, they polled the refugees who had in Berkeley, California in 1964, my life had from the west, especially Jews, we made come from the west to find out whether been one of serial escapes. When I, a Polish our way east to Lvov, seeking sanctuary they wanted to stay in the Russian sector child survivor of the Holocaust, arrived in in the Russian sector. Accommodations or return to the sector controlled by the England in 1946, I was warned not to think were scarce. It was not easy for Mother, Germans. Smelling a trap, Father chose or speak about my past, but to focus on Father, my brother, Artek, and me, accus- to stay and begged Grandmother to do the present and the future. I took that advice tomed to living in a spacious and well-ap- likewise. She, a committed anti-communist, seriously. It would take years for my story pointed apartment, to adjust to living in could not believe that the civilized Ger- to come out of hiding. a single room. Mother cried frequently. mans would harass people as much as When I started to write, it was for my Father shouted often. Artek’s spankings the Russian barbarians. She indicated she family — I didn’t want them to lose the link increased. I was berated for the smallest wanted to return to Kraków. My half-sis- to their past. Then, as Holocaust deniers infraction. ter Liana was given no choice; she was became ever louder, I felt an obligation to We were uprooted several times. I didn’t told by the authorities that she had to add my testimony to counter the lies being understand at the time that we were leave. Later we learned that a ‘friend’ had spread. But it was the drumbeat of immi- escaping roundups of ‘undesirables.’ We denounced her to the Russian Secret Ser- grant bashing and the stoking of hate had become ‘enemies of the people.’ Some- vice as a Nazi sympathizer. Why? Accom- against Muslims that induced me to go times Father had to go into hiding outside modations were impossible to find, and public. I realized that my early experienc- the city. He was being hunted because he her friend’s reward was the promise of es of displacement, deprivation, discrim- was a lawyer. At the age of four I had to Liana’s room. ination and death were not that different keep Father’s profession a deep secret. The reason for the poll was to cleanse to what so many refugees face today. The Russian secret service, NKVD, per- Lvov of potential subversives. Grand- Slowly hidden memories sneaked out. secuted people for a variety of crimes: mother and my sister ended up in a camp Retrieving my buried memories has made Father, because of his profession; others, near Omsk where they had to float logs me confront the destructive force of secrets, because they were capitalists, intellectu- down the river and do back-breaking, lies, and bigotry, and allowed me to cele- als or Polish Communists, who didn’t tow heavy labor. My sister succumbed to brate the saving power of courage, altru- the Stalinist line. typhus. Against all odds, my grandmother ism, and especially of love. Tackling writ- When Father wasn’t hiding, he looked survived. ing about my past required looking at it for work. No work, no ration cards. No Suddenly, in June 1941, Germany more closely and, at the same time, from ration cards, no food. Our always-resource- attacked Russia. The Germans took Lvov a greater distance. During that process I ful Father had parleyed his automotive Contined on next page

3 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

without a fight and renamed the city, Lem- How much did I know about the vio- (Out, Out) I would flatten myself against berg. Portraits of Hitler and Nazi flags with lence and danger? Living in such close the wall to peek from our window as terri- the black eagle and the swastika appeared quarters with adults who daily were fied people tried to vanish. But the Nazis everywhere. demeaned, hounded and intimidated, I had their quotas to fill; their roundups The pathetic remains of a normal life absorbed their despair. My response to were unrelenting. The dogs bared their were immediately disrupted; humiliations, my world turned upside-down was to frightening teeth and strained on their losses and terror cascaded over us. My shroud myself in numbness. leashes as their handlers prodded them all-powerful parents were rendered as The day we walked into the ghetto was to terrorize the screaming, crying people, powerless as children. I became increas- the first time I entered a slum. I hated the pushing them toward the waiting Gestapo ingly fearful and lived in a fantasy world of small room we rented, and that another trucks. Desperate to evade the attack evil kings, dragons and witches. family lived in the kitchen. We had metal dogs, people would climb in; others were On the first day of the Nazi occupa- army cots topped by thin mattresses. The shoved in. The trucks drove off. No one tion, German soldiers knocked on every place was overrun by mice, rats, and cock- knew the destination. door in our neighborhood, and with mili- roaches; as soon as the one light bulb in Some ‘fortunate’ people toiled in facto- tary precision rounded up all the women, the room was turned off, the rustling start- ries outside the ghetto. Still strong in his including Mother, who didn’t return that ed. The cockroach population reigned — the forties, Father was one of the slave labor- night. We were distraught. Where could she floor was alive with their quivering, black ers in the Kosmos factory, which pro- be? Finally, two days later, she came home bodies. I hated the nighttime when the flimsy duced fumigation candles for the German dirty and disheveled, exhausted from two walls broadcast people’s coughs, screams army. He left early in the morning and days of heavy labor. The commandeered and sobs. I hated being cold in the unheat- came back in the dark, tired and irritable. women were put to work: scrubbing toi- ed room. Father had sealed the windows But his work permit allowed him some lets, cleaning floors, washing windows with newspapers and hung a blanket over freedom of movement, which he used to in the filthy garbage-filled barracks that the ill-fitting door to try to keep the cold keep in contact with a gentile friend, Mr. Russians had hastily abandoned. out. It helped a little, but the air in the room Krzysztalowski. Through their web of con- A few days later a truck drove onto our turned stinky and humid. tacts, they heard that the ghetto, which street. A couple of soldiers sauntered over Cooking, shopping, hygiene: every- was ‘open’ was about to become ‘closed.’ to some kids playing outside, “Are there thing became a struggle, nothing new to Imagine my astonishment, one day in any Jews living on this street?” The kids slum dwellers, but a revelation to a child the summer of 1942, when a German soldier were only too happy to point out sever- brought up in comfort. came to our room carrying a large empty al houses, including the one where we I developed boils all over my body and canvas sack. lived. The soldiers barged into our room, underwent the ‘cupping cure.’ Extremely ‘Haneczka,’ Mother said quietly, ‘You have to get in. Don’t be afraid, it will be all right.’ Afraid that I might talk, my par- ents had told me nothing about what was going on. Mother gave me a hug, warned MOTHER GAVE ME A HUG, WARNED ME TO BE SILENT, me to be silent, and whispered ‘Goodbye.’ AND WHISPERED ‘GOODBYE.’ TRAINED TO ASK NO Trained to ask no questions but simply to obey, I stepped into the sack. QUESTIONS BUT SIMPLY TO OBEY, I STEPPED INTO I was slung over the man’s shoulder and moments later deposited in a truck. My THE SACK. brother, who had been sent out ahead, was hiding among a stack of bags. Scared, con- fused, I had no idea what was happening. The truck drove out of the ghetto and roughly pushed us aside, plundered, and hot glass cups, which created suction, were some minutes later my brother and I were moved on. set on my body ‘to help blood flow and pro- dropped off in the ‘Aryan’ part of town. To Mother explained that because I was mote healing.’ When they were removed, be in forbidden territory was so terrifying Jewish, I was no longer allowed to go to my I looked polka-dotted, but was only cured that I have no memory of our arrival or school and the safest place was in our when Father spent a fortune persuading a our reception. It wasn’t until many years room. While under the Communists we had ghetto doctor to sell him some medicine later that I learned that Father and Mr. suffered food austerity, under the Nazis from his dwindling stash. Fleas and lice Krzysztalowski had planned my brother’s Jewish rations were reduced to a mere 500 infested me, and I was covered with scabs and my escape. To take us out of the ghet- calories a day — fifty percent of the Gen- from my constant scratching. Lice spread to, Father had bribed a German soldier, tiles’ meager allotment. Cooped up in our typhus, a dreaded disease which swept the driver of the truck. room, I was bored, scared and always hungry. like wildfire through that overcrowded The Krzysztalowskis, an elderly, child- That September, we were ordered to prison-like environment. less couple lived in a comfortable third- move to the northern outskirts of the city, The Gestapo and their ferocious Ger- floor apartment in a middle-class neigh- an area full of tightly packed and decaying man Shepherds or Doberman Pinschers borhood near a park — and next door to tenements that housed the city’s Jews. arrived regularly. As they yelled ‘Raus, Raus,’ Contined on next page

4 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

the German Officers’ Club. Though the Krzysztalowskis were well paid to care for Artek and me, we think that their decision to protect us was motivated by their humanitarian beliefs rather than by financial gain. They hid not only us. Another Jewish brother and sister, adults with false iden- tity papers, lived in a room next to ours. That room was our confined world for over two years. The poor nutrition, lack of exer- cise, the fear and constant tension that clouded our days would not only impair our health but rob us of a normal child- hood. And yet, we were among the lucky few. We survived. Danger was never far from us. One day a jittery Mrs. Krzysztalowski came running into our room, flapping her hands and shooing us out. ‘Quick, quick, you have to leave imme- diately. The Gestapo is here. Go to the back door and down the stairs.’ Later we learned that someone in the My maternal grandmother, Hermina Ehrenpreis, with my Aunt Jana and her older sister, Irena, my mother. neighborhood had shot a German. The Gestapo immediately started a house-to- house search. Fortunately, Mr. Krzyszta- ing place. Not a moment too soon, he found by fear, I lay as still as if I were already lowski was one step ahead of the search- a chicken coop where she stayed while he dead. How long did we hover between ers — downstairs neighbors allowed us searched for a more permanent place. life and death? How long did the Gestapo to come down while the Krzysztalowskis’ Eventually both hid in a woman’s apart- spend walking around our room? Most apartment was being checked out. He told ment where a small space was enclosed probably a very short time, but it felt as if, the neighbors that friends of theirs from by a false wall. That’s where they hid, in a with one more second, I would surely die a village had sent their two children for a literal hole in the wall. of suffocation. visit to the city without a permit. So, as soon Once again, our building was searched I heard the door click. They were gone. as the Gestapo had searched the down- by the Gestapo and Mrs. Krzysztalowski We lay hot and drained until the shaken stairs apartment, we crept down the back burst into our room and told us to leave Mrs. Krzysztalowski returned to tell us we stairs. Luckily, this highly risky maneuver by the back stairs. could come out of hiding. It had been a worked. ‘No,’ my brother decided, ‘it’s too dan- close call; my brother had saved us. In the winter of 1943, Mr. Krzysztalowski gerous; it would be safer for us to hide here.’ Our parents felt that the risks, after the told Artek some good news, ‘The Germans To my surprise my eleven-year-old broth- liquidation of the Lemberg ghetto, were so lost the battle of Stalingrad and they are er prevailed, and Mrs. Krzysztalowski ran grave that they gave Mrs. Krzysztalowski being driven west. The Russian winter and off to the back of the apartment. Without permission to have us baptized. What a low the Red Army proved too much for them.’ losing a beat, Artek told me to lie down moment that must have been for my par- Some days later he delivered bad news, on the bed; he pulled several down com- ents. And what a joyous moment for her! ‘The Nazis are smarting from their defeat forters from storage and put them on top On a dark evening, the only time we and retaliating against Jews in the ghetto. of me. left our hiding place, we walked a short Your parents are trying to get out.’ ‘Lie right next to the wall. Don’t move distance and slipped into a neighborhood The Germans’ military defeat had bred and don’t make a sound.’ church. I was awed by the vaulted ceiling swift and deadly vengeance against Jews. I had to stifle a fit of nervous giggles that soared above us, the silence, the The ghettos were liquidated. People were which threatened to explode and give us glowing candles and the smell of incense. sent to death camps, shot in the streets, away. A priest in embroidered robes met us. We or they died of starvation. By the time the Suddenly, I heard the door from the next were sprinkled with holy water. Surely the war was over, of the 200,000 Jews in Lemberg, room open. I knew that the smothering holy water made me a real Catholic? I felt only one thousand survived. One thousand. down, mounded like snow above us was virtuous. Maybe I would never be naughty Our parents managed to flee the ghet- our only safeguard against discovery and again? Perhaps I would be saved? to before the final extermination. Father, death for everyone in the house. I heard But before that happened, Mrs. Krzysz- who was still considered an ‘essential work- the muffled but unmistakable sounds of talowski came into our room one day and er’ and had some freedom of movement, German. Authoritative boots struck the sat down. That was unusual. She was a searched frantically to find Mother a hid- wooden floor. Sweating, my mind stifled Contined on next page

5 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

sour woman, who brought our meals, and marish than imagining them being shot. light bulb went out. We were plunged into hardly ever spent time with us. Was that why first Mrs. Krzysztalowski, darkness. I could hear people and things She said, ‘I have some sad news. and then my brother kept it from me? My falling, babies wailing, adults screaming or The woman who hid your parents was brother and I have lived all these years crying or praying at the top of their voic- a drunk. Apparently, one evening she with contradictory accounts and conflict- es. Would I die in the crowded, dank, dark visited a bar and said something that led a ing memories about the most harrowing basement? bounty hunter to tip off the Gestapo. They event of our young lives. Since we will never The anti-aircraft guns blasted non-stop. raided her apartment and found your par- know the truth, I prefer to cling to Mrs. Fear made time move slowly. Had we ents. We heard that everyone was shot. I Krzysztalowski’s story. spent a whole night in the cellar before am very sorry.’ Finally, the long-awaited but nerve-shat- we finally heard the ‘all clear?’ Eventually, Had I been preparing myself for this tering Russian bombing raids got closer. with help from above, some of the men news? Or by this time was I too traumatized While the planes were still at some dis- managed to push the cellar door open. Tons to take it in? My immediate reaction was tance, Artek and I cowered in our room lis- of rubble and broken glass lay outside, not grief for our parents. After two years tening to the explosions. But one day Mrs. but though badly damaged, our building was standing. To this day I empathize with the trep- idation people feel facing an escalator for the first time. And to this day sudden loud sounds make me jump. Lemberg’s bom- bardment remains etched in my body’s memory. A few days later, on July 26, 1944, we heard shooting, martial music and strains of the Polish national anthem, ‘Poland has not yet perished, so long as we still live.’ Only four months after my parents were murdered, Lemberg was liberated. Mrs. Krzysztalowski told us that the Russian soldiers had entered Lemberg and were greeted by flag-waving, flower-throwing throngs. The Russians promptly renamed the city, Lvov. The war, at least in Lvov, was over. After years of living with fear and deprivation, what did I imagine peace would bring? Foremost, I hoped it would mean the end of hunger and a return to school. Although I clutched at the hope that our parents would return, the fatalistic per- son I had become knew deep down it was improbable. My grandparents, Bronislawa and Malech Rose, and their 10 children; my father, Jan Rose, the youngest, is seated left, 1938.​ Ironically, it was our regular attendance at church on Sundays that led to our sight- ing by a distant relative, another con- apart, they had become phantoms in my Krzysztalowski came to get us. ‘Hurry, we vert. She understood that our presence mind. I could barely remember what they have to go to the cellar.’ She cautioned us, was part of the Catholic cover we had looked like and I could no longer imagine ‘Don’t speak to anyone, don’t talk; look acquired, and she contacted a member of a normal life with them. No, it was the for a dark spot where you can hide.’ the Jewish Distribution Committee (JDC) stunned realization that I was now as We left the apartment. Confronted by who was searching for survivors. He got hapless as the fairy tale match girl with the staircase, I panicked. Between the terror in touch with Mrs. Krzysztalowski who whom I had already identified. I was an brought on by the explosions, my feeble reluctantly, agreed to let him visit us. I orphan—that dreaded word. matchstick legs, and my lack of practice was amazed; I could barely believe that Seventy years later, after reading my of walking down flights of stairs, I froze. somebody “out there” cared about us. He memoir, my brother disclosed what Mr. Afraid of being left behind, I was about to asked whether he could take us back to Krzysztalowski had told him about our slide down on my bottom when someone Kraków because if any member of our fam- parents’ death: ‘The Gestapo arrested the scooped me up and carried me. ily survived, they too would return there. drunk. They searched and sealed her apart- The noise from the bombs was deaf- But Mrs. Krzysztalowski promptly dashed ment. Our parents were trapped in their ening. The cellar floor rocked back and our hopes. hole in the wall.’ This was even more night- forth. Abruptly, the one weak hanging Contined on next page

6 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

‘I cannot agree to that. I promised their for me to rush past her. I picked up the ly, I scrambled out on the other side, parents I would keep them until a family brush like a relay baton and ran. I ran unmaimed. member came to claim them. They are Cath- faster and longer than ever before. My lungs Our slow ecape west resumed. We trav- olics now and in our care until such time.’ were exploding, I had a stitch in my side, elled through a series of ghostly, bombed- The JDC was making a valiant effort but I got to the JDC member’s apartment. out towns and packed railroad stations, to find survivors, especially children, and Scared by my defiance of an adult’s order, where masses of displaced people clutch- try to reunite families. Some of the sur- in pain from the run, and terrified that ing their pathetic bundles beat on the doors viving children didn’t even know they I would never see my brother again, I of the crammed cars, begging to be let in. were Jewish, having been brought up as wept. But Artek wasn’t far behind me. He At last, a couple of days after V.E. Day, we Catholics since early childhood; others, had gotten past Mrs. Krzysztalowski eas- arrived in the noisy, chaotic Kraków station. like me, were confused. ily and assured me that now everything More than five years had passed since Despite being rebuffed, the JDC didn’t would be all right. we had left amid a similar pandemonium. I give up. A Committee representative met In the morning, we had to flee once had departed a spunky, know-it-all, indulged my brother secretly and instructed him, more. The Committee was afraid that the four-year-old. I returned a timid, secretive ‘Put some clothes in your satchel every Krzysztalowskis could have reported us and unnaturally fatalistic nine-year-old with day and drop them off at my apartment.’ as kidnapped. The apartment we were in no expectation of love or comfort. As I dis- My brother did as he was told. Sur- would be the first place the police would embarked, stiff and dazed, I looked around reptitiously, we prepared for our next search. We were sent to a safe house and wondered, “What now?” escape. We had to hurry because a group where the beautiful lady lawyer, a nud- We were fortunate. An adult cousin of children was going to leave on a train ist, encouraged everyone to shed their had survived and was already looking for Kraków in a few days. As the war still clothes. My then teenage brother still after a teenage niece when she undertook raged in the west, schedules were uncer- remembers with glee his first sight of a to be our caretaker. Some months later, tain, travel was difficult. It might be a long female body. I, on the other hand, have our grandmother returned from the hor- time before another train made the trip. no memory of that night. The next day rors of a Siberian labor camp. On the appointed day, happy and agi- we were moved to another safe house, Since we were penniless, we were eli- tated, we got ready for school, but at the outside Lvov, this time to the home of a gible for the free meals dispensed at the front door Mr. Krzysztalowski stopped surviving rabbi. One more move brought Jewish Committee headquarters. The assis- us, he must have suspected something. us to the final safe house where the last tance provided by the Committee was After opening my brother’s satchel, he of the found children gathered to join our funded mainly by the US-based Jewish Joint was livid. little group for the journey west. Distribution Committee (JDC) and the ‘You ungrateful little liars! Go back to The approach of a train was announced. Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). your room. You are not going anywhere.’ We set off by twos or threes for the rail- After the war these organizations were Furious he escorted us back and banged road station. Nervous, I imagined the police the lifeline that helped the hidden, the the door shut. watching the station and returning us to resistance fighters, the survivors of Nazi I was shaking with fear. In our room, the Krzysztalowskis. What would they do concentration camps and Russian labor we sat in silence. While I was imagining to us? camps — about 65,000 — all that was left dreadful punishments, my brother was When the freight train finally arrived, of Poland’s prewar population of over thinking ahead. After a while we heard our leader somehow managed to squeeze three million Jews. Mr. Krzysztalowski leave the apartment. us into one of the already packed cattle Once at the soup kitchen, I had to line Artek leaned over and whispered instruc- cars. It had no windows, only vents high up with my three-tiered tin food container tions in my ear. up on the wall. We sat on straw. The toilet and wait for the serving women, wielding Though petrified, I willed myself to obey. was a bucket. In that fetid, rolling cage, we big ladles, to fill them. Anxiety would set I ran out of our room to the front door, were putting Lvov and its horrors behind us. in on the way home with my valuable but before I could open it, I was inter- After some hours, the train stopped. It cargo. Choosing the shortest route along cepted by Mrs. Krzysztalowski who came was dark. I heard our leader’s voice. “We the main streets, I kept a lookout for storming out of the kitchen, a hot iron in have to get off and board the train one potential problems. Some days the street her hand. track over. But hurry because it is about kids called out ‘dirty Jew,’ or ‘kill the Jew- ‘How dare you disobey my husband to leave and it’s the last train for Kraków ess.’ Those I tried to ignore. The nastier, and where do you think you are going?’ for days.” stone-throwing ones had to be dodged. Tears of fear helped me to justify my Somebody helped me to descend onto No grown-up ever hampered them. But disobedience as between sobs I followed the station platform. To reach the parallel my biggest fear was that I would return Artek’s directions. track, we had to crawl on our stomachs home empty-handed. When I complained ‘I am sorry. I was brushing my hair under the train. I was shivering with fear. to my cousin, she told me the street – Mother’s silver hair brush – on the bal- I knew the train would start to move and urchins were not only hungry but home- cony – by accident I dropped it . . . I must cut me into shreds. “Don’t stand there, less as well. run down – pick it up – quickly – I don’t you’ll get left behind!” Finally, I forced ‘Don’t feel sorry for yourself. We are want someone to steal it. Please. I have myself like a sacrificial offering under the the lucky ones. We have friends. They don’t.’ to hurry.’ smoke-belching monster. I prayed, “Dear Brought up on The Little Match Girl, I knew She considered my story long enough Mother of God, protect me.” Miraculous- Contined on next page

7 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

she was right, but I still couldn’t muster retaliation and overt violence that they want us to live under a Communist gov- sympathy for those mean kids. refused to treat the summer camp chil- ernment or in a place where the Catholic The Committee building was always dren, many of whom suffered from serious Church stoked hatred of Jews. But at the a hub of activity and noise. In addition to illnesses. time, I didn’t think anything they said was distributing emergency food, it also sup- The summer camp was guarded like a important; I only knew that as a ten-year- plied used clothing. Boxes of old shoes, prison. A powerful searchlight and a siren old I had no choice but to obey, but I coats, and dyed US Army uniforms were had been installed on the roof. A machine didn’t like it. laid out on the ground in the courtyard, gun was placed on one of the balconies. The Our escape from Poland was arranged where they were constantly rummaged. director of the camp, Dr. Lena Kuchler, by a London rabbi, Solomon Schonfeld, who Once, I found a sturdy pair of shoes. The was given pistols for her staff and a flare shepherded kindertransports both before pair I had been wearing had big holes in gun to use in case of an attack. At first, and after the war. On embarkation day in the soles; I had filled them with newspa- six guards from the Polish militia, who Gdynia, I marveled at the size of the ship per to make them fit and to keep my feet worked in shifts, were assigned to the that would take us to Sweden. I couldn’t dry. I threw them away, happily. camp, but their commander was unsure understand why it wouldn’t sink, espe- The busy, noisy courtyard was also of their loyalty since he could barely feed cially after the cargo and luggage had where people displaced by the war came them. He was right to worry. They start- been loaded and all of us had boarded. to find or exchange information. On the ed stealing the scarce food supplies. Dr. The dollars sewn into my coat made me periphery of the hubbub I saw some skele- Kuchler had to ask that they be removed. tense. Thoughts of my impending death tal, zombie-like people who stood motion- In their stead, the Committee sent Jewish by drowning were mitigated only by imag- less, no expression on their faces. But guards who trained the older boys to use es of sweet revenge, Grandmother and my when the names of those confirmed dead rifles and to throw hand grenades. These cousin sobbing, sorry that they had sent or of newly-discovered survivors were preparations proved to be prescient. One me away to an untimely death. added to the large sheets of paper pinned night the camp was attacked. Thanks to Suddenly the deck below my feet on the wall, the atmosphere in the court- the guards, the teenagers, the director, swayed, and we were sailing away. Soon yard became electric. The rummagers and the eventual arrival of the Polish mili- we were out of sight of land, and still the stopped their scavenging. The zombies tia, the attack was repelled. boat glided serenely along the water. My shuffled to join the wave of people that Many of the older campers wanted to mood shifted. The day was clear, the sea flowed across the courtyard. People jos- leave, not only the camp, but Poland. They calm, I had a ship to explore. My fear of tled each other to peer at the new addi- wanted to make their way to Palestine. death floated away; curiosity prevailed. tions to the lists. Some cried, some turned But at that time, no different from now, And I had no idea of what lay ahead. n away disappointed, some danced with the countries they had to pass through joy, and then the everyday hullabaloo in didn’t want anything to do with refugees. Anna Rabkin was born into a comfort- Polish and Yiddish resumed. I longed to Yet Dr. Kuchler was determined to get the able Jewish household in Krakow, Poland. see my parents’ name on the wall. children away from the poisonous atmo- The outbreak of World War II forced her Many of the women who ran the Com- sphere that continued to stalk the few family to escape just ahead of the German mittee had lost their own children. We, Jews left in Poland. With help from a Jewish army to the Russian sector where they the surviving youngsters, were both the organization, she personally smuggled were hunted by the Communists. They reminders and remainders of the million one hundred children out of Zakopane to were considered “enemies of the people” killed; we were their hope for the future. safety in France and eventually got them because her father was a lawyer. After the They made heroic efforts to help bring us to Palestine. war, an orphan kindertransport landed back to health. Artek, who had been diag- I believed we would live in Kraków for in England, allowing her to escape Polish nosed with a spot on his lungs, had been the rest of our lives. After all, we had sur- antisemitism. She entered the bewildering sent to recuperate in Rabka. But the hous- vived the war, made it back to our home- world of English boarding schools before es where the Jewish children were stay- town, and were happily reunited with the being adopted by relatives in New York. ing were attacked at night by machine few surviving members of our family. But After marrying Marty Rabkin, the couple gun-wielding thugs. The war-hardened chil- shortly after I returned from Zakopane, I migrated to the political hotbed of Berke- dren knew to flatten themselves on the overheard my cousin talking about a boat ley, California, where, eventually, she floor or crawl under their beds, but after trip. London was mentioned. was elected to the office of City Auditor. a second attack, the Jewish Committee My cousin and the Jewish Committee The co-author of “Public Libraries: Travel closed those houses down. Arrangements had tried to create an ordinary childhood Treasures of the American West,” she holds were made to use a defunct TB sanatori- for me, but in the end, it was decided that masters’ degrees in City Planning from the um in Zakopane instead. life in a country that continued to revile University of California, Berkeley, and in Both my brother and I were sent there. Jews was too unpredictable and danger- History from California State University, The sanatorium sat in the middle of a mead- ous. Over forty Jews had been killed in East Bay. ow full of flowers and evergreens, bordered the Kielce pogrom on July 4, 1946, while Anna wrote this article for The Hidden by an icy white-water stream. The staff the police stood by, and many smaller Child, but her complete memoir, From Krakow in Zakopane had to shield us from the attacks took place all over Poland. Now I to Berkeley: Coming Out of Hiding was vicious Polish anti-Semites. All the doctors, can understand that Grandmother, after published by Valentine Mitchell in 2018 except one, were so cowed by the fear of what she had suffered in Siberia, did not and is widely available at online bookstores.

8 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

Maren Friedman presented the following remarks to her fellow congregants at Adas A MISCHLING’S STORY Emuno in Bergen County, NJ, on Friday, April 17, 2015, at a special Shabbat service in By Maren Friedman commemoration of Yom HaShoah.

When I meet someone new, the initial tion comes out of a genuine interest to dialogue often goes something like this: understand, and with surprise that some “Where are you from?” I answer, “New Jersey.” Jews survived in Germany without being “No, I mean where are you really from? hidden or in concentration camps during I notice a slight accent. I mean where were the war. you born?” My answer: “Germany.” So, when I was asked to speak about my “When did you come here?” experience tonight for Yom Hashoah, I said, Answer: 1951. “Sure.” After all, I have spoken to schools as “How old were you?” part of Holocaust education programs. My Answer: 12. friends certainly know my history. But each If the person is Jewish and is not sure and every time, the telling is hard and my if I am Jewish, what usually follows is, “Oh,” stomach gets tied into knots. Yet I know with a hesitation and a slight moving my story is unusual because I have never met anyone else who survived as I did. I am a mischling. When my parents mar- ried in 1930, neither family was happy with the marriage. My father was Gentile, and his family was certainly not pleased. Even though this was before the Nazis were in power, anti-Semitism existed. My mother was Jewish, and her family certainly had their fears about her marrying a non-Jew. Although some members of my moth- er’s family were observant, her own parents were assimilated Jews. My grandfather was a Zionist, and he and my grandmother immi- grated to Israel in 1936. My grandfathers’ brothers felt that his fears of the Nazis were exaggerated, and held the mistaken belief that Jews would be safe in Germa- ny. Ultimately, they were all murdered. My mother often spoke of the difficul- Maren Friedman, née Thormahlen, in Kiel, Germany. ties that she, as a Jewish woman, encoun- tered during the early years of the Hitler regime. She could not go to the movies or away. They become leery. I have come to any other public places or events. She was recognize, to understand this distancing. limited to staying in the house and was In the Jewish community, Germany still only able to shop in stores that catered to has a history to deal with and so I have Jewish customers. Most of all, she remem- come to learn that I must use words and bered fearing for her aunts and uncles references that quickly identify me as who were being deported. being Jewish. It is very important to me to She always recalled that while she was be identified as Jewish, and not German. in the hospital giving birth to me, no one This generally leads to the next question. came to visit. When she asked questions, “Where were you during the war?” And she was reassured by the nurses and cau- then, always, “How did you survive?” tioned not to get upset lest it affect her or Sometimes the question is very casual her baby. I was born on November 11, 1938, and if I don’t know the person, I just answer, right after Kristallnacht. The Night of “We were very lucky.” Other times the ques- Contined on next page

9 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

Broken Glass, November 9th to 10th, when leave and his losing patience and giving Jewish homes and stores were ransacked me a severe spanking on the railroad and thousands of Jewish men arrested, station platform. Parenting in those days signaled the beginning of the strongest was very different, and he was a typical anti-Jewish actions. By then, my grand- German father who believed in ‘spare the parents and my mother’s brother had rod and spoil the child.’ immigrated to Israel, and my mother’s As the bombings increased, children in sister had left for Sweden in 1937 on one Kiel were being evacuated. My sister had of the last ships out of Germany. been sent with her school into the safety My parents had their conflicts as a result of the countryside, but her headmistress of their mixed marriage. My father’s broth- called, saying that she could not stay ers and mother did not welcome my moth- because the Gestapo was visiting the school er in their homes. Of course, my mother’s and her being Jewish was too dangerous. restrictions frustrated my father, and he We were bombed out in 1944, and I was often pursued his own friends and inter- hospitalized with a severe concussion. ests, leaving her with her children, feeling Here again my mother talked of telling the alone, angry, and scared. My sister, who doctor that we were Jews, and that his is seven years older than I, remembers response was, “She’s a child and I’m a doc- their frequent fights and my mother cry- tor and that’s all that matters.” After we ing much of the time. After my father were released from the hospital we fled entered the military, my mother, sister into the countryside and found shelter at Cousins Friedl and Uri Cohn, who were murdered in and I were truly left to our own devices. a farm, but again only for a short while, the camps. Money was very tight and her limitations until the farmer realized we were Jews and and fears increased constantly. had to leave. Kiel, where I was born, was a small After our return to Kiel, my mother suits all the time. Since the threat of air town at the end of a canal that connects worked in a forced labor camp, a fish fac- raids was constant, one never undressed the Baltic and North Seas. It was, and still is, tory, but was able to come home at night. because when the sirens signaled an attack, we had to be ready to run to the shelter. The shelter we used had just recently been extended with a new emergency exit and a children’s wing in the rear, near the door. This was to be used specifically for moth- ers and children. One night a bomb fell outside the shel- ter and people were screaming to get in. When the door was opened, gas from the exploded bomb seeped into the shelter, asphyxiating everyone in the children’s wing. Since my sister and I had come to the shelter on our own, without mom, we had been told to go the new children’s wing. However, my sister, who whiled away the time making figures out of the clay dirt Maren’s parents, uncle, aunt and sister Rita, on rear terrace of their home. Kiel, c. 1935/6. available at the emergency exit insisted that we stick to that end of the shelter. She also said that since our mother was used a shipbuilding town in Northern Germany. At that time one of my father’s brothers to us being by the emergency exit, that Mom grew up in Kiel, and according to her, helped us replace blown out windows in she would look for us there if she was let everyone knew her. She recalled being an abandoned apartment where we were go from the fish factory. My sister’s love called to the Gestapo for questioning. But able to stay. My father also came home on of modeling saved our lives in that we since no one had brought any complaints furlough and helped gather the few remain- all escaped through the emergency exit against her, and she had not broken any ing pieces of furniture from our bombed- which had only been completed the week rules, such as shopping in non-Jewish stores out apartment. before. I still remember the countless empty or going out beyond the curfew, she was While my mother worked, my sister took carriages parked before the entrance. released and told to go home. care of me during the day, and our lives Other memories are like all war mem- My own memories really begin around in many ways were like that of our neigh- ories. Fear, bombings, sounds of sirens, 1943-1944. I had the usual bouts of child- bors. There was no food, no clothing, no burned out buildings and rubble. And run- hood diseases. My father came home on water, no heat, or sleep. I only remem- ning. Running, running, always running. I furloughs. I remember not wanting him to ber wearing what we would call warmup Contined on next page

10 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

remember just not wanting to run anymore. on that ferry. know that according to Jewish Law I am Our skin was covered with scabs and We were meant to go to Cincinnati, but a Jew because my mother was Jewish, blisters from phosphate bombs. my aunt agreed to be responsible for us but I also know that many in the Jewish As far as having a sense of Jewish here in New York. community do not trust the Germans. I identity, I remember that towards the I entered school in the 7th grade, and share that distrust. However, I am a little end of the war, as my mother was getting learned English from a girl who spoke Yid- of both, and that isn’t always easy. dressed, I said to her, “When we win the dish, and therefore understood German. She So, there is no clear answer as to how war...” She stopped and stood absolutely translated whole sentences for me, and I survived. Perhaps it was because I am still, held my face in her hands and said, I repeated what she said. I also learned a mischling, a designation Germans use to “If the Germans win the war, we will that America and particularly the Jewish describe a child of a mixed marriage. Or all perish.” That was my first sense of community was understandably afraid, because my father was in the military and being Jewish and that being Jewish was different and dangerous. Besides being a ship- and submarine- building town, Kiel’s strategic location at the Baltic end of the canal, linking it to Hamburg, Bremen, the North Sea and, of course, England, France and the Atlantic Ocean, made it a primary target, and 80% of the town was destroyed. I recall at the end of the war that the munitions dump was blown up before the Allied Forces arrived. People were crying in the shelter when it was announced that Germany was defeated and Hitler was dead. And then the soldiers came, American and English, bringing us candy, gum, choc- olate, stockings, and cigarettes. Slowly, with the aid of the Red Cross and HIAS we were put in touch with my family in Israel and the US, who sent us not only mail, but also care packages with milk, flour, cloth- ing and M&Ms. After the war, many camp survivors came to Kiel. It was then that we learned Young Rita Thormahlen, now Rita Gompertz, in Kiel. firsthand of the horrors of Auschwitz, Ber- gen Belsen, and other camps. The survivors were emaciated. They needed help and time did not divorce my mother, or perhaps as to heal. HIAS and the American Jewish my mother said, “The laws were carried Joint Distribution Committee attended to out by people, and not all people are evil.” their care. It was from them that I also Perhaps it was just plain mazel... I only learned for the first time about Jewish things, know that I survived, and I have come to Maren and older sister Rita in backyard of their home such as food, language and holidays. in Kiel, c. 1939/40. be okay with that. My father, who had been captured by I had wanted to marry someone who the Russians and been a prisoner of war was a full-fledged Yankee with a large fam- in Siberia, returned to Kiel in 1949. I had angry, and rejecting of anything German. ily. Instead, I married a wonderful man yearned for his return and had the fan- I had been the “Dirty Jew” in Germany and who is also a German Jew, who came to tasy that now that the war was over and suddenly found myself in danger of being New York with his mother before the war. he was home, all would be well. That was identified as German in New York. While we have different memories, there not the way it turned out. My parents had Growing up without any knowledge or is a common thread that helps us to under- grown apart and divorced in 1951. training in things Jewish, still leaves a void stand each other in a profound way. My mother, sister, and I immigrated to in me. It’s a lack of history. I am without We have two daughters, one of whom the US through the Displaced Persons Quota memories of holidays, family, and tradi- married a non-Jew, but all of our grandchil- in 1951. tion. They simply aren’t there. dren were raised and identify as Jews, and My first memory of the US was arriv- There is also a sense of guilt. I know that is very important to us. I only wish ing in New York harbor early on a June we were meant to be on the next transport, them a world that is different from the one morning and seeing the Statue of Liberty. but, fortunately, the war ended before that I grew up in. A ferry came by and my thoughts were happened. The struggle to accept the Gen- I wish everyone everywhere peace and that I wanted to be just like those people tile part of my heritage is still ongoing. I freedom from persecution. n

11 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

I was born in Berlin, Germany, on June Nazi oppression. MY LIFE 16, 1938, the second child to Radomsker In exchange for flour, sugar, and salt By Rivka (Rebecca) Pardes Birnbaum Chassidim, who had run away from the that they had stockpiled as the war neared, poverty of Oswiecim, Poland, around the my parents rented an apartment in Brus- end of WWI. Along with other Chassidim sels. At first, we lived a near-normal exis- from Poland, they settled in an area of tence as a family. After the spring of 1942, Berlin, Berlin-Mitte, off Schoenhauser Allee. when the Germans introduced the wear- My parents owned a dry goods and cloth- ing of the Yellow Star and began the mass ing store, and they prospered until Hitler, arrests and deportations of Jews, my broth- yimakh shemo,1 took power and persecut- er and I were hidden with Gentile families. ed Jews. Our family had no other choice but One day, my 12-year-old brother, a big to flee. soccer fan, sneaked out to watch a game My father, a Polish citizen, left first in played by two top Belgian teams. He was 1938 when I was a small baby. He was very lucky not to have been found by the smuggled into Antwerp, Belgium, by the Gestapo, but the people who hid him no Radomsker Rebbe. My mother planned for longer wanted to risk another such caper,

A recent photo of my husband and me with our three bearded sons and their wives, our two daughters next to each other, our youngest holding her youngest. We are in New York at the wedding of our grand-nephew, Elya Pardes, the grandson of my late brother Maitre Markus Pardes O”H.

us to join my father, in 1939, after preparing and they asked the underground to pick for the escape of her mother and youngest him up. He was then sent to a Catholic sister to London, where my grandmother’s boarding school in Kortrijk, not far from sister and her family lived. Although we Brussels, where he joined quite a few other had the option to escape to London as well, Jewish boys. my mother would not leave my father alone Although some Catholic institutions in Antwerp. or monasteries that hid Jewish boys tried My mother had no valid papers to enter to convert them to Catholicism, this one Belgium, but when she landed, with me in was not aggressive about it. The director her arms, she pretended to faint. She was advised the boys to convert for their own taken to a hospital in Antwerp, and the safety, but my brother refused, saying, “I Belgian government allowed us to stay. have been brought up as a religious Jew, By that time the fate of the Jews returning and a religious Jew I will remain.” Each day, to Hitler’s Germany was known, and many lying beneath his blanket, he continued to Belgians were very helpful to Jews. They recite the Shema and his morning prayers hated the ‘Boches’ and pitied the Jews under Contined on next page

12 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

faithfully. Claudine could not understand how I had and put on later convoys; 26 were killed, As a 4-year-old girl, I was hidden with managed to keep the three younger kids quiet. either by shooting or by the fall; and 118 a Belgian widow, along with three younger Meanwhile, my mother was arrested, and succeeded in escaping. 2 Jewish children, the youngest of whom spent two months in Mechelen (Malines), My mother was one of those lucky few. was a mere baby. With two teenagers of Belgium’s transit camp, where she with- Bloodied from the fall and a resulting miscar- her own, the widow, Madame Villain, had stood an awful blow from one of the Nazi riage, she reached a nearby farm. There, the her hands full. Although the teenagers guards for daring to put her hands in her kind farmers cleaned her up and gave her quarreled often, the daughter, Claudine, pockets while forced to walk around the a ticket for a train to Brussels. When my helped every day when she came home courtyard in the cold. But her fate would mother reached Brussels, she returned to my from high school. We lived on rue de l’Or- have been far worse had she not brave- father and their basement hiding place. Shortly thereafter, though it was extreme- ly dangerous for her to go out, she decid- ed she had to see me. She left at night and hid in a church near my hiding place until early morning. I don’t know how she dis- covered my address. For our own safety

Rebecca, age 4, rear left, in hiding with the three other Jewish children, ages 3 years, 18 months and 6 months. dre, a small side street where everyone knew ly escaped deportation by jumping off that Madame Villain was caring for small the Twentieth Convoy, the sole transport Jewish children. train throughout Europe during WWII to For a while nobody betrayed her. Then, be stopped. a young neighbor fell in love with a Ger- On April 19, 1943, the Twentieth Trans- man soldier and told him about us. But she port left the Mechelen transit camp car- Rebecca about 2 years old made a mistake, indicating we lived at rying 1,631 Jewish men, women and chil- number 10, instead of number 8, just next dren. The convoy was guarded by one officer door. Still, in this working-class neighbor- and fifteen men from the Sicherheitspoli- and that of the brave people who hid Jew- hood, where all the houses had joint walls, zei. Armed with one pistol and a hurricane ish children, no one was allowed to know I, as the oldest, had to keep the other chil- lantern covered with red paper to create the whereabouts of their children. dren quiet. Somehow, all, even the baby, a makeshift stop signal, three young men But my dear mother was very daring! sensed the fear and remained silent; and — one Jew, Georges “Youra” Livchitz, and She was bringing me an egg and a piece the Gestapo left. his Gentile friends, Robert Maistriau and of chocolate her landlady had managed The very next day, the young woman Jean Franklemon — were able to stop to get on the black market. Her face was who betrayed us was shot by the Belgian the train between Mechelen and Leuven. gaunt and her eyes bulged out. She looked underground while riding her bicycle. To Maistriau opened one wagon and liberat- scary, yet she seemed familiar as she this day I feel that I was saved for a pur- ed 17 people. Other prisoners, including opened her arms towards me. Madame pose, and seek it. Memory is so protective my mother, escaped later when the con- Villain, whom I called Mémé, asked, “Don’t that I had completely forgotten about this ductor slowed down sufficiently between you recognize this lady?” Suddenly, it pen- terrifying experience. I was reminded of it Tienen and Tongeren to allow people to etrated my brain and my heart. I called by Claudine Hugo, Madame Villain’s former jump off without killing themselves. In all, out “Maman!” and jumped into her arms. teenage daughter, when she related this to 233 people succeeded in escaping from But I still remember the extreme trauma me in a Brussels café in 1976. Even then, the train; 89 were eventually recaptured Contined on next page

13 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

of that moment of uncertainty. bombing. Adults and kids were very fright- Another time, my parents’ landlady ened. There was an opening from the base- picked me up and brought me to the dank ments of all the houses onto our small basement where my parents were hiding. street that, if needed, was meant to be The landlady, Madame Cobben, was hold- used as an escape. That passage was also ing me on her lap, facing a papered-over, used as a getaway by the many neighbors glass-topped door. Suddenly, behind the who worked for the underground. obscured glass, I saw a shadow; and The war ended for us in September 1944. then a shining eye through the key-hole. Even on rue de l’Ordre, there was delirious I exclaimed to the landlady: “There is joy as the population held hands, sang somebody there looking at me!” I cannot and danced through the streets, as confet- remember if I knew it was my mother and ti showered over them. whether I said “Maman” or not. But the I was extremely fortunate to be reunit- ed with my dear parents after the war. Most hidden children (about 80%) lost their parents to the systemic murder of the Nazi Machine. I was able to go to school in October 1944, one month after Liberation, and remember learning how to write on a Postwar photo of my father, c. 1950. slate. I had a harder time than the other students in my class because my parents’ knowledge of French was still very weak. counter. By then, we had the luxury of hot They spoke mostly Yiddish or German, water, but still no refrigerator. To keep because they had spent their married life food cold, we used the marble floor of the before the war in the Chassidic quarter hall and the cold cellar, which also kept of Berlin. the coal for our fantastic Flemish oven After the Liberation, and until 1950, my that baked a really crusty potato kugel for parents rented an apartment on the sec- Shabbat. ond floor of a narrow house overlooking I loved my high school to which I walked the railway in Schaerbeek, a division of for 10 minutes every day. It started at 8:00 Brussels. I remember seeing from our win- am, so in the winter I walked in the dark. dow the Allied soldiers, probably Americans My teachers were very knowledgeable. I or Canadians, with big triumphant smiles, was most interested in languages and his- waving their hands at us. We lived in only tory. My first Latin teacher happened to two large rooms: one kitchen-dining-room be a school friend of Claudine, Madame with one bed in a corner where my broth- Villain’s daughter, so she took a special After the war as a teenager about 14 or 15 years old er slept, and my parents’ bedroom with a interest in me. For my first year’s last Latin crib in which I slept until I was 12. It was exam, I got 100/100, not a single mistake! rather smelly, but I got used to it. We had But then, what a fantastic teacher she was! shadow disappeared immediately, and no fridge; we kept food cool on our balco- We would play-act what we learned during Madame Cobben said, “But no, there is ny. About three years after the war, as our recesses, imagine two Roman girls, nobody, look!” My poor mother had want- soon as my parents had managed to save Marcella and Fabiola, writing their story in ed to see me so badly that she had prear- enough money, we got a splendid black, French which our teacher translated into ranged this visit. shiny piano. My parents and my brother, Latin (we inscribed the new Latin words We children hardly ever went to the who was 8 years older than I was, were all into our self-made, alphabetic vocabulary front of our hiding place, but I remember very musical. So, we had piano lessons as book). Dressed up in sheets, including our playing pick-up-stones with shrapnel in the well. There was a sink with cold water in teacher, we attended a Roman school, backyard with Albert, who was about three the staircase hall that separated the two visited Roman houses, walked to Roman years old. We also played in the attic with rooms. Once a week, before Shabbat, we funerals, made our own grammar fiches the lead soldiers and the Meccano train would go to a bathhouse that smelled with different colors for all Latin ‘cases,’ set belonging to Mémé’s teenage son. One strongly of bleach, and whose floors were conjugations, etc. day I convinced gentle little Albert to enlarge covered with slats of wood. Although my dear father, a descendant a scratch in the wall until we extracted the In 1950 we moved to the ground-floor of a dynasty of Rebbes, the Stasheve Rebbes, pulverized cement that I puffed onto my apartment of a larger house with a garden. was not too happy about it, my Latin teach- face, imitating Mémé as she powdered her Our next-door neighbor had a black and er convinced my mother that I had to go face in her bedroom. As a result, Mémé white cat, called ‘Trotinette’ (Scooter), which to university, and I did, choosing Germanic gave poor Albert and me a good spanking! my dear Father lovingly fed outside. In its Languages, including Flemish, but special- I distinctly remember running to the base- large kitchen we installed a bath, which we izing in English. I also graduated with a ment for shelter as the sirens announced a covered with a wood board and used as a Contined on next page

14 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

degree in pedagogy for teaching in high Two years later, in September 1964, my schools. I finished with a ‘Grande Distinc- husband was hired as Associate Professor tion,’ meaning an average of 80 to 88%. of Turkish at the University of Toronto University students’ results were printed and we moved to Toronto. During the first in Le Soir, the main French-language news- two years my husband was assigned the paper in Belgium. In 1960, I took the page duty of building the Turkish, Arabic and with my name and results to Madame Vil- Persian collections of books in the Uni- lain (Mémé) who was sick with cancer at versity Library. In 1970, he became full that time. That piece of news gave her and Professor of Turkish, with tenure. He was Madame Jacobs, her friend and neighbor, a very kind and understanding Professor some joy. I still remember their proud smiles who loved his job, and was beloved by in having saved the life of a Jewish child his students. with such university results. I taught French part-time in Toronto, A few years ago, I went to Belgium to at Eitz Chaim, grades 7, 8 and 9, and I was have Madame Villain and her daughter a substitute in high schools of the Toron- Claudine Hugo inscribed onto the Wall to District School Board as soon as our of the Just at Yad Vashem via the Israe- youngest daughter was in school full time. li Embassy in Brussels. The ceremony From 1981 onwards, I have taught English, was held at the Town Hall of Ixelles, the French and History full-time at Don Mills suburb of Brussels, where I and the for- Collegiate and at the French High School mer toddler hidden with me, Raymond downtown. Reichenbach, who now lives in Paris, were In 1970, my husband’s parents, profes- in attendance. It was Raymond who had sor Solomon Asher Birnbaum and his wife, organized my encounter with Claudine Irene, and his younger brother David and Hugo in a café in Brussels. family settled in Toronto, as well, on our I was offered a job by one of my pro- Identity card for my mother, Braune Goldwasser street. I had already given birth to four fessors in one of the best high schools in (maiden name), Schaerbeek (Brussels), November 1941. more children: two boys, Shmuel Menachem Brussels, actually a Boys’ school, but instead I in 1966, Avrohom Uriel in 1967, and a chose a new burgeoning Jewish high school, ing on blow-up mattresses in YWHA Com- daughter, Sarah Malka in 1968. Our young- munity Centers. I then decided to stay in est daughter, Miriam Devorah, was born New York, actually in the Bronx where I in 1975. They are all married, all frum, had two uncles, brothers of my mother. I schooled in frum schools and Yeshivos. This taught French and History at a Beth Jacob is our vengeance against Hitler, may he High School in Boro Park Brooklyn. At a burn in Hell! Columbia University lecture, I was intro- Nathan Joseph (Nussi) and his wife, Lea, duced to my husband, Eleazar Birnbaum, in Toronto, have seven children, five boys grandson of Nathan Birnbaum, the famous and two girls; two of them married, one Baal Teshuva thinker and orator. is engaged. Shmilu (as we call him) and Eleazar was a frum intellectual, who Chaya in Lakewood, New Jersey, have two captivated me with his knowledge while we sons and one daughter; two of them mar- visited the Jewish Museum in New York. ried. Avrohom Uriel (Avrumele), also in He could decipher old Hebrew manu- Lakewood, has nine children, five boys and scripts and books with great ease. A few four girls; two boys are married. Sarah months later, on Chanukah, after giving Malka and Danny Eisen, in Israel, have four an impromptu lecture on Chinese Jews, children, three boys and one girl. And Miriam which I did not know about, my misgivings Devorah and Yonatan Kaganoff, in Passaic, about his age (he was 8 years older) melt- Rebecca in her kitchen in Toronto, 1983. New Jersey, have five children, four boys ed away, and we got engaged in New York, and one daughter. and married in Brussels on June 12 ,1962. Eli and I have much nachas from our where I taught English and Flemish, Bel- For the first 2 years, my husband was children and grandchildren and we are zoche gium’s second language. I also taught hired as a Middle Eastern Bibliographer at to have eight great-grandchildren. Eli will beginning piano lessons on the side to a the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, be 89 in November I”H, and I am 80. n and we lived in Detroit, about an hour away couple of kids I knew. Endnotes In the summer of 1960, I went to a Youth from the University. I taught French at a 1 May his name be obliterated is one of the strongest Camp near Toulouse in the South of France, Mercy College, a Catholic institution. I was curses in the Hebrew language run by an organization of Jewish religious offered a job at Wayne University, but their 2 Wounded in a later action, Georges Livchitz was scouts, Les Eclaireurs Israélites. With the hours were not convenient for me, espe- arrested and executed by the Nazis in February, 1944, together with his brother Alexander. Robert Maistriau same group, one year later, I visited the cially after our first boy, Nathan Joseph, obtained the title of Righteous Among the Nations in East Coast of the U.S. and Canada, sleep- was born in 1963. August 1994.

15 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

RESILIENCE IN THE LIVES OF TRAUMATIZED HOLOCAUST CHILD SURVIVORS Eva Fogelman, PhD

An ironic turn of events befell Jewish youngsters who survived the barbaric Nazi-German annihilation of European Jewry. A million and a half Jewish children were murdered, and of the thousands who sur- vived, most were left homeless orphans, who did not know the fate of their parents or siblings. A few survived with a parent. Some were reunited with one or both par- a splendid Chateau in Ecouis, France, with ents, or with a relative. Many did not even other children from Buchenwald. Repre- know their given name, their birthday, or sentatives of the O.S.E., a children’s social their family of origin. service agency, gave them tefillin (phylac- Liberation was not an exhilarating teries), religious books, pencils, and paper. moment. To learn that one is all alone in Wiesel remembered, “We held our first the world is to move from one nightmar- Minha (afternoon) service, and we all said ish world to another. Jewish social ser- Kaddish (the Jewish memorial prayer for vices and relief organizations dispersed the dead) together. Although we knew it well youngsters to existing orphanages, group enough, that collective Kaddish reminded homes, and chateaux. Some children lived us that we were all orphans.” Belonging to with remnants of their families, or with that group of orphans, now a substitute strangers, in displaced persons camps in family, was an initiation towards construct- Germany, Austria, or Italy. Sometimes, they ing an identity. were removed from the safety of rescuers’ Forming an identity is the first step homes, whom they came to know as their towards resilience: the ability to recover, mothers and fathers, by strangers from the adjust, be successful and happy after facing Jewish Brigade, or by their own parents, adversity such as massive psychic trau- who now felt like strangers to them. A few ma. When one undergoes a state of “sig- were smuggled by the Bricha (underground nificant adversity,” resilience is the ability organization of Jews in Palestine) to Palestine. to adapt positively. Returning to function During the German occupation many and to psychological well-being is mea- of the youngest Jewish victims had to change sured on a continuum: from survival to their identity to “Christian,” lie about their adaptation, to competence, to healing, to age, about their family constellation, some- hardiness, to robustness, to wellness. times about their gender. After liberation, Traumatized Jewish children in these those who had no memory of being Jewish post-Holocaust communities found encour- were challenged with developing a new agement for normal development through identity, often in conflict with their “Chris- social relationships and in group activi- tian self.” Others struggled to recapture ties. Here, they developed a professional self individual identities that were rooted in through educational opportunities; and their early Jewish experiences. By belong- they solidified a Jewish identity through ing to a child survivor group burdened with exposure to Jewish culture, religious prac- similar upheavals, the process of reconfig- tices—celebrations of Jewish holidays and uring an identity became more tolerable. shabbat—and national beliefs, such as Zionism. In each survivor’s recovery there comes Despite the grave losses of traditional a moment of realization—the creation of a family and community life, these young- new identity, or the loss of an old one. Elie sters seized upon the opportunity to repair Wiesel poignantly describes his arrival at Contined on next page

16 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

and to develop themselves. As these com- being in a satisfying, intimate relationship. While most researchers gravitate to the munities began to re-establish a continu- Resiliency was also enhanced for young- study of the pathology of traumatized pop- ity to a diverse Jewish life that had been sters who had an opportunity to contin- ulations, from Holocaust child survivors destroyed, the children’s confused, bereft, ue and complete an education, thereby more can be learned from the resilience or amorphous Jewish identities were increasing the likelihood of establishing of the human spirit despite adversity. For unsettling, and they began to contemplate a more satisfying professional life. A few example, the Israeli writer Aharon Megged a more life-affirming identity. The commu- became successful without an education, followed approximately 100 of the 800 nal holiday celebrations, Jewish schools, which also increased the inclination to be orphaned children who lived in a mansion the theatres, music, dance, newspapers, more satisfied with one’s occupational iden- in Selvino, Italy, after world War II, before publication of books, and the creation of tity. Thus, despite losing their childhood immigrating to Israel. He concluded that political and Zionist organizations in the and education, child survivors who were these youngsters grew up to be adults, displaced persons camps were links to able to self-actualize do not identify them- who were able to form intimate relation- the past and to the future. The celebration selves as eternal victims. ships and to marry. With the exception of life-cycle events amid the remnants of Researchers have also studied person- of one divorced man, who continued to European Jewry indicated to the young- ality characteristics that contributed to wander between Israel and the United sters that life, not death, prevailed. resilience and better adaptation. Sociolo- States, the others remained in stable rela- These transitional facilities enabled thou- gist William Helmreich, who wrote Against tionships. There were no criminals in this sands of children (including some toddlers) All Odds, (1992), proposed ten assets that group, and all were gainfully employed or to begin the process of integrating a frag- supported survivors in adapting to their were busy raising children. mented self, strengthening the ego, re-ad- new lives after liberation: flexibility, asser- I attribute the resilience of these orphans justing a superego to an emancipated tiveness, tenacity, optimism, intelligence, to the communal experience in Selvino that life, establishing an individual and group distancing ability, group consciousness, supported them to gain an “integrated self,” identity, improving interpersonal relation- assimilating the knowledge of survival, find- and not to identify with just a “victim self.” ships, and developing intellectually. ing meaning in one’s life, and courage. Many also had another group involvement An important social support system that While all these personal internal fac- in a kibbutz in Israel. Satisfying marriages enhanced the potential for resiliency was tors enhanced the inclination towards also added to a meaningful existence in to have survived with a parent(s) and or resilience, the external factors that child being able to bring to life the next gener- to have reunited with a loving parent(s) survivors confronted after the war’s end ation and establish a sense of continuity. who was not emotionally damaged by the cannot be dismissed as either enhancing or In this group, gainful employment added persecution. A child reunited with a par- impeding one’s resilience. A bad marriage, meaning and empowerment to their lives. ent who was not psychologically capable no marriage, an unsatisfying occupation, This finding is also confirmed by a team of caring for him or her had to become the traumatic losses (losing a child who fought of researchers at Ben Gurion University, parental child. Such a dynamic interfered in one of Israel’s wars), an inability to con- reported by Norm O’Rourke, who explains with the ability to feel resilient. ceive, an emotionally or physically chal- that survivors integrated memories of horror In addition to the social support that lenged offspring, poor physical health, and loss by having meaningful relationships expediated resilience in Holocaust child prolonged illness or loss of a spouse, many and productive lives. (Out of 269 interview- survivors, other factors could increase or displacements before settling on a perma- ees, only five were too uncomfortable to impede such propensity. Notably, resilience nent home—all these are external influ- continue the interview.) in one area of life was no indicator of resil- ences that contributed to a challenging Defense mechanisms are other aspects ience in all facets of functioning. Those adjustment and disequilibrium. Resilience to consider in examining dynamics that who had the opportunity before the per- is not a static state of being. result in resilience of traumatized individ- secution to experience positive social To complicate matters, nearly half of uals. As mentioned, there is no doubt that dynamics, such as parent-child attachment, the survivors have sporadic episodes of surviving with a relative or a caretaker, or parental warmth, family cohesion, and close Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms. reuniting with a loving parent after the war, relationships with caring nonpunitive adults, Those who have experienced more person- enhanced the potential to be resilient. But were better able to form lasting loving al stresses and external threats in their that may not have been enough without relationships after the Holocaust. But inap- post-Holocaust lives have had symptoms the defense mechanisms that helped the propriate situations could hinder this: a of PTSD erupt regularly. As in every pop- survivor to overcome losses, personal near- forced wedding with the wrong partner, or a ulation, approximately fifteen per cent of death experiences, and constant confron- selected marriage for the need to survive. any group suffer from a psychiatric diag- tation with killings. What emerges from For instance, a young woman in her late nosis, such as psychosis, obsessive-com- interviews with child survivors is that teens marrying a father figure ten or twen- pulsive disorder, schizophrenia, depression, denial was a common defense mechanism, ty years older with whom she had nothing various forms of anxiety, manic-depression, which served an important function in in common, except that he too was a Holo- addictions, and so on. What is statistically the aftermath of trauma. Michael Born- caust survivor; or relatives or parents noteworthy among child survivors is that, stein, author of the Survivor’s Club, was who married off their children at a young despite the trauma they endured, they do four years old when he was tattooed in age because they felt too burdened them- not have more of these mental challenges Auschwitz along with his mother, father, selves to continue to care for them. Such than do other groups of people who did not grandmother, and younger brother. Born- circumstances decreased the likelihood of suffer trauma. Contined on next page

17 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

stein’s father and brother were gassed, and is a lie, that it never happened. He wrote paper, Stars and Stripes. When Krisher Michael survived with his grandmother in Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very returned to the United States, he attended because his mother was deported to a Young Prisoner of Auschwitz, “I slammed my the Columbia School of Journalism and wrote labor camp. Michael was spared the death computer shut in disgust. I was horrified. for The New York World-Telegram and Sun. march because he was in the infirmary in My hands shook with anger.” Michael says He also studied the field of Japanese area- Auschwitz a few days before the Russians he was “almost grateful for the sighting.” and-language. Krisher continued to have an liberated the camp. Bornstein was one of He goes on to explain, “It made me realize illustrious journalistic career when he moved 52 children under the age of eight to sur- that if we survivors remain silent—if we to Japan in 1962 and became bureau chief vive Auschwitz. don’t gather the resolve to share our sto- of Newsweek and later Fortune magazine, Despite hardships along the way, Michael ries—then the only voices left to hear will and where he met his wife and had two Bornstein’s life is one of resilience. His lov- be those of the liars and bigots.” children. He founded a magazine, FOCUS, ing mother survived, and they reunited in The search for meaning is the final stage which was read by two million people, and their hometown of Zarki, Poland. After an of mourning in which an individual has a he served as chief editorial advisor for a unwelcome return to their home, Bornstein need to channel feelings in a constructive Japanese publishing company. Krisher was and his mother joined other displaced way. Michael’s ability to transform his anger the only one to interview the Japanese persons in a DP camp in Germany, and into a positive outlet was another form of Emperor Hirohito “one-on-one.” then moved to an apartment in the city. resilience. If one gets trapped in the emo- Krisher’s journalism career took him to Bornstein was bullied by German children tional stage of mourning, resilience can- Cambodia, where he founded a newspa- in school until he and his mother finally not flourish. Being a constant victim, or per, The Daily, in 1993. It was a major chal- received visas to the United States when always feeling angry, depressed, helpless, lenge to have a newspaper that reported he was ten years old, in 1951. or incapable of enjoying life because of sur- the truth under the regime of Prime Minis- Bornstein remained silent about his past vivor guilt, can exacerbate post-traumat- ter Hun Sen for 34 years. The print edition for many years. He had limited recollec- ic stress disorder symptoms and delay of The Daily was forced to close in 2018. tion of his traumatic experiences, and some “posttraumatic growth.” Krisher believed in the power of journal- memories are mixed with stories told to What is “posttraumatic growth?” It is ism to fight power with truth. him. And, like most children, he remem- a term coined by psychologists at the What is most impressive about Krish- bers the stench of bodies burning, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte er as a Holocaust child survivor is his smoke rising from crematoria chimneys, to explain a “positive change experienced heightened empathy for other children the quickening clack of guards’ boots. But as a result of the struggle with a major life and adults who are suffering. Being very what plagues him is that he has no recall crisis or a traumatic event.” They go on to conscious of the extermination of two mil- of the texture of his brother’s hair, or the say that “posttraumatic growth “can take lion Cambodians during the Khmer Rouge sound of his father’s voice. five different forms: New Opportunities as regime, Krisher became Chairman of the Michael grew up with a mother who a result of surviving life and death; form- American Assistance to Cambodia. He was promoted optimism. She would often say, ing different relationships with others responsible for the building of 550 schools “This too shall pass.” He succeeded pro- whether it be a closer connection or a strong in Cambodia. He founded the Sihanouk fessionally by building a successful career bond with those who suffered like them; Hospital Center for Hope, which is known in pharmaceutical research. He married feeling more confident in their ability to for giving free medical care for the poor. and went on to have four children, and a survive– “if I lived through that, I can face Orphans and foster children from remote fun-filled life of sports, parties, and sheer anything;” more gratitude for life in gen- villages were given an opportunity to have enjoyment of the fruits of his labor. eral; deepening one’s spiritual life and an education, and to have rice when the Not until his children were adults, and religious practice. World Food Program stopped its food asked questions, did Michael begin shar- One Holocaust child survivor who distribution. ing bits and pieces of his horrific child- embodies “traumatic growth” because of Although I never interviewed Krisher, hood in Auschwitz. When, for his bar mitzvah gratitude is the “idealistic-driven” journalist, one can surmise from his professional and project, his grandson asked questions, Bernard Krisher. Krisher was born 1931, philanthropic work that his survival as a Michael went from denial to confronta- in Frankfurt, to a Polish Jew who owned a child motivated him to work towards free- tion, and began to talk about his past in fur store. In 1937, when his father could no dom for all people, and to help those who earnest. Denial was no longer the adap- longer support his family because the Ger- survived genocide. His meaningful life is tive defense mechanism that had served man authorities confiscated his store, the obviously above the ordinary, but that does Michael in his childhood and adulthood. family fled to France, and hence to Spain not mean that each Holocaust child survi- In his mid-seventies, Michael had a and Portugal, before arriving in the United vor cannot find more mundane endeavors “marker event.” This time he was shocked, States in 1941. Krisher was already a bud- that can make a difference in someone’s and hence, more resolute to tell, not just ding journalist at age 12. In high-school and life, and simultaneously enhance resilience. his family, but the general public, about the at Queens College, he was editor-in-chief of While Michael Bornstein benefitted persecution of the Jews during the Ger- his school paper. During the Korean War, from his mother’s survival to become resil- man occupation in World War II. This Krisher was drafted into the Army and ient, and Bernard Krisher was fortunate to transformation happened when he saw a he served two years in Germany working have survived with both parents, Judith picture of himself as a boy at Auschwitz for the US Army’s press and information Mannheimer Alter Kallman, despite remain- on a website claiming that the Holocaust division, reporting for the Army news- Contined on next page

18 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

ing an orphan after the war, was resilient. Kallman was born in Piestany, Czechoslo- vakia, famous for its spa. Her peaceful child- hood ended one Sabbath evening when her parents and her five siblings were sitting down to a Sabbath Friday night dinner. A rock was thrown through the window; it shattered not only glass, but their idyllic way of life. The family went into hiding, and one day Judith fell into a latrine. She could not scream because the Germans were every- where, so she prayed, asking for a way to get out before she drowned. She climbed out one nail at a time, feeling as if the hand of God were lifting her. From that moment on she felt that God would protect her, and she had total faith in God. While Judith was at school, her parents and two older siblings were put on a cattle car destined for Auschwitz. Coming out of school, she and her ten-year-old brother saw their parents on the train. Judith screamed and was silenced by a Hlinka guard. She, along with two brothers and a sister, were saved from deportation and sent to an aunt in Nitre, who was a major supporter of Vaad Hatzala, the Jewish Res- cue Committee. Judith and her siblings were then sent to Budapest to join anoth- er aunt, who slammed the door when she saw them. The two older siblings were accepted by a Zionist group and immi- grated to Palestine under the auspices of Aliyah Beit, the illegal immigration orga- Tova Friedman, Sarah Ludwig and Michael Bornstein (left to right) survived Auschwitz and were pictured in nization. She and her 10-year-old brother an iconic photo taken at the concentration camp’s liberation. Though they did not know each other then, the were taken to prison, then saved by Vaad three immigrated to the U.S. and eventually settled in New Jersey, not far from each other. Bornstein’s book, “Survivor’s Club,” featured the photo on the cover and brought them together for a moving reunion in June 2017. Hatzala, and placed under the care of Stern, PHOTO: COURTESY DEBBIE BORNSTEIN HOLINSTAT. a well-known restaurant owner and rescuer. When Germany invaded Budapest, Judith was hiding in the “Glass House,” a shel- She later joined her siblings in Israel and people along the way, this increased the tered building under the protection of lived in Kfar Batya, a Mizrachi boarding potential for her resilience. Although she the Swiss legation. After liberation, Judith school. Because Judith knew how to speak is not a religiously observant Jew, her returned to the Stern family, but the new English, she became the fund-raiser. She unwavering faith in God, enhanced her resil- wife refused to have Judith board with approached potential American donors ience and added to the continuity of the them. Judith contracted a lung disease while giving them tours around the facili- self. Judith was an active leader in lobbying for and was sent to a sanitorium adminis- ty. One of the American Jewish tourists Israel, she worked on the Clinton Campaign, tered by the Joint Distribution Commit- whom she met through her work proposed and other political causes. Since her book tee. Her journey continued in a Christian marriage, and they married in Israel. She A Candle in the Heart was published in 2011, orphanage; and her aunt then arranged then immigrated to the United States. Judith speaks in schools. Her message is to for Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld of London Judith became a widow with three young stop bullying, because bullying is a symp- to get her to England on the last boat. In children when her husband died of cancer. tom of a failing democracy and a warning England Judith was living in a group home She had to take over his business for which that genocide is possible. for orphans. This transitional supportive she was not prepared. The lawyer for the Dasha Rittenberg, another Holocaust community enhanced her resilience. When business, Leon Charney, guided and sup- orphan, was born in Bedzin, Poland to a Eleanor Roosevelt came to England for an ported her, and taught her how to manage Gerer Hassidic family. The Sabbath was the official United States government visit, her affairs. Eventually she started dating highlight of every week, celebrated as if Judith, the preteen girl, was chosen to and met another satisfying life partner. one were getting ready for a “celebration present her with a bouquet of flowers. Because Judith had many supportive Contined on next page

19 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

to receive a bride.” * Dasha’s job was to polish marriage, which brought her to America, did next generation. Feeling that one’s trauma her three brothers’ shoes when they came not work out. Yet Dasha did not succumb is validated, and its essence has value, adds home from school. She prided herself in to despair. She had a son to raise, and that to the search for meaning. Knowing that being complimented as the best polisher. strengthened her resolve to cope. Having someone cares about what a survivor learned When the Germans invaded Poland, elev- to care for the well-being of another per- from his or her traumatic experience, does en-year-old Dasha and her family were forced son is another form of resilience. Dasha’s not diminish the victimhood, but one feels into a ghetto for two-and-a-half years. Her earlier experience with loving parents and more empowered about making a difference. parents and three brothers were deported siblings imbued with Jewish spiritual and Over the years Holocaust child survivors to Auschwitz and murdered. Dasha and her traditional values, enabled her to be a lov- were told that they did not suffer because older sister were conscripted into the ing mother, and to establish a home that they do not remember details of their Schatzlar labor camp until liberation on represented a continuity with her earlier ordeals. In more recent years, this miscon- May 8, 1945. What sustained Dasha during life. In addition, being part of a supportive ception has been discredited. It may seem the years of slave labor was being among spiritual community, and not living an iso- exaggerated to suggest that telling ones’ a few other girls who were cognizant of lated life with few friends, enhances the life story is healing and enhances resilience. when the Sabbath arrived each week. Even potential for resilience. If you throw a stone into the water you though they had to work seven days a week, The generation that survived the Holo- notice the ripple effects, so too with a story on the Sabbath, Dasha and her friends tried caust as children has much to teach the men- of survival. n to do less work. During Passover, she traded tal-health profession about resilience. The * Dasha Rittenberg’s story appeared in her bread for a potato, and even though lost childhood, the murder of one’s parents the 2017 issue of The Hidden Child. every day consisted of a starvation diet, and siblings, can never be undone. The she fasted on Yom Kippur. When one year nightmares, post-traumatic stress disor- Eva Fogelman, PhD, is a psychologist she confused the date for Yom Kippur, der symptoms under conditions of stress, in private practice, author and filmmaker. she created another fast day. fear of abandonment, trust, anger at the She is the Co-Director of Child Development Continuity of the religious self in the most persecutors and the passive bystanders will Research, Founding Director of the Jewish extreme situation provides an emotional never fully disappear. But these emotions Foundation for Christian Rescuers, ADL (ne strength that is life-sustaining. Dasha also have not impeded most child survivors from Jewish Foundation for the Righteous), and remained loyal to her parents and their leading productive, satisfying, meaningful Psychotherapy with Generations of the values with whom she was hoping to be lives at work and maintaining satisfying Holocaust and Related Traumas. Dr. Fogel- reunited. She felt that her keeping faith in intimate relationships. Although, at times, man is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nomi- tradition and religious observance meant these goals have been more challenging nee Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of that “this entire family remains whole and than for those who did not experience Jews During the Holocaust, and most recently survives.” massive psychic trauma, aging child survi- co-editor of Children in the Holocaust and Dasha’s sister survived, and together vors have more gratifying lives when they Its Aftermath: Historical and Psycholog- they immigrated to Palestine. An arranged find ways to transmit their life story to the ical Studies of the Kestenberg Archive.

WORLD FEDERATION CONFERENCE 2019 VANCOUVER, NOVEMBER 1-4

The World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Descendants (WFJCSH&D) will hold its 31st Annual Conference in Vancouver, BC, November 1 – 4, 2019, at the Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel. The Kindertransport Association (KTA) will join the conference once again as will members of Generations of the Shoah International (GSI).

Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, districts, Gastown and Yaletown as well as Stanley Park and surrounded by rivers, the Pacific Ocean, mountain ranges and the Seawall. The specially negotiated rates for the conference parkland. It has a thriving Jewish community with an active are available three days ahead of the conference, as well as Holocaust education center which reaches over 20,000 high three days following it. school students annually. The community and the Vancouver The conference will be hosted by the Vancouver Holocaust Holocaust Education Center look forward to welcoming you. Education Center (VHEC) and the local Holocaust Survivor The hotel is located in the heart of downtown Vancouver, community. Please plan to come early and stay late. There is close to many interesting venues. It is within walking distance much to do and see in Vancouver! Check it out at: https://www. to the world-renowned library designed by Moshe Safdie, the tourismvancouver.com/plan-your-trip/. Watch for updates at Vancouver Art Gallery, Granville Island and Robson Street shopping www.holocaustchild.org .

20 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

A SURVIVOR’S AFFIRMATION OF LIFE By Éva Paula (Ádám Rosenberg Rozgonyi) Nathanson

Before the Holocaust reached Hungary, my maternal grandfather, Adolf Kohn, par- ticipated in the ‘Underground Railroad’ that saved Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland. Grandfather, a widower and father of six adult children, owned land, a manor house and a kosher dairy farm near the Czechoslovakian bor- der. He had his own shul in the manor house, and all neighboring Jews were welcomed. Recent photo of Eva Nathanson. Each Shabbat, he opened his home to stranded travelers and Jewish soldiers. In 1939, my father, a friend of my mother’s into the courtyard. This was followed by brother Miklos, was one of those soldiers. piercing shouts, screams and the firing of My parents, Magdolna Kohn and Mozes bullets. My governess ran down to see what Ádam, married shortly thereafter. I was born was going on. She returned, pale, trembling, in Budapest, on January 28, 1941. and said in a terrified voice, “We are going While Grandfather’s sons and sons-in- to play hide-and-seek.” Placing her index law served in the army, his daughters and finger over her lips, she whispered, “Not a Eva at first birthday, holding doll given by birth father. their children lived with him. Although word, not a sound! If we run into anyone my mother spent weekdays in Budapest, you do not know, pretend you cannot running my father’s furniture factory, I stayed understand or speak.” She took my hand with the family. Mother would arrive each into hers and led me through the rear corri- Thursday evening, and return to Budapest dors, out the back entrance, then onto the on Monday morning. small path from the house to the service Grandfather had progressive views: he quarters. As we turned, I saw uniformed men believed in equal rights and responsibili- shove my family onto the trucks. I turned ties for his two sons and four daughters. All to my governess for an explanation. Visibly had been equally educated and instructed shaken, she replied, “They are also playing in the management of the land and the farm. a game.” He did not permit child labor, insisting that As I followed her into her parents’ house, I every child on his land attend school, and felt frightened and confused. She dressed he treated his employees fairly. Grandfather me in peasant clothes belonging to one of was respected and admired by everyone. her sisters. It was to be part of the game, One night in a local bar, in early 1943, a game I could not understand. Grandfather was unwittingly denounced On this fateful day I escaped the horrif- by a farmer who had too much to drink. ic fate of my mother’s three sisters, their chil- The man bragged that his employer Baron dren, my grandfather, and my great-grand- Kohn was not only fair to everyone who mother. None were ever heard from again. worked for him, but that he also rescued The next day, my governess took me to Jews from Nazi-occupied countries. The my mother in Budapest. Shortly thereaf- Hungarian Nyilas set out to make an exam- ter, a family friend, Laszlo (Laci) Hantos, ple of Grandfather and our family. All were who was working with the underground, arrested and immediately deported. came and said to my mother, “Pack what My earliest memory begins at this point. I you can carry; you and Eva have to leave was playing with my favorite doll upstairs immediately. They’re coming for you both. in the children’s quarters with my govern- I will try to get some of your valuables later. ess. My aunts, cousins, grandfather, and The underground and I are taking respon- great-grandmother were downstairs in sibility to make sure you two will be safe. the day room. We heard trucks pulling Contined on next page

21 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

We owe that to your father.” I were separated from my mother, and from the impact. My mother covered us Sometime later, Laci found a little girl, brutally shoved onto a truck. I pulled Vali with her body to save us from the falling crying by herself on the street. Vali was into a corner next to me. Through a tiny jars, cans and debris being displaced younger than I was. He brought her to my gap, I saw four men in dark uniforms and by the jolting. I asked my mom, “Are we mother and said, “She seems to be all alone. red arm bands following us on horseback. going to be all right?” Her response was, I could not leave her; she needs to stay Two climbed onto the truck as the others “Shush, just one more bomb and we’ll and hide with you.” I was pleased to have held the reins of their horses. I held my never have to be afraid again.” By this time, a companion. breath, petrified. Men in uniform scared Mother had lost hope, was depressed, and The three of us were hidden by righ- me. They threw us into the arms of the felt weak. In her despair, she no longer teous Christians and the underground, other two men on horseback. I was so ter- believed in a future. wherever and whenever some good peo- rified that I threw up and soiled myself. I Someone from the underground had ple were willing to take us in. Hiding two remember the shame, disgust, the paralyz- sent her a message from a man who had small children was a major risk, and each ing fear I felt as the man held me. Without witnessed the murder of my father and place proved to be temporary. We were a word, they brought us to the cellar of my Uncle Miklos. It seemed that my father hidden in pantries, attics, basements, clos- a building where we were reunited with and uncle were punished with hard labor ets, cellars, and in a hole dug under the floor my mother. Those men in the SS uniform and regular beatings because they had tried of a room. In the end, we hid in empty, were actually part of the underground. to escape. My uncle was tied to a tree and bombed-out buildings all over Budapest cold water was poured on him until he until April 1945. froze to death. The Nazis had ordered my Throughout our hiding period, we were father to dig his own grave; they shot him, petrified, confused, traumatized, afraid, and buried him alive. The news of my hungry. We followed orders without ques- father’s and uncle’s murders had shaken tion: we wanted to survive. I can still smell my mother’s resolve. She was 22 years the mildew emanating from sacks of rotted old and a widow. She told me later that vegetables that covered one hiding place. the only reason she fought to live was to I still see the eyes of rodents that shared save us. our spaces. We lived in discomfort, fear, By then, the Hungarian Arrow Cross dirt, hunger and silence. When we had any militiamen were doing all they could to normal day-to-day activities, such as eat- dispose of those Jews who so far had escaped ing, speaking, crying, walking, moving about, deportation. They dragged the remaining washing, or using the bathroom, we felt Jews to the bank of the Danube, where grateful. Vali and I had to learn to cry in they were tied together, shot, and tossed silence, speak in whispers, and be still most Young Eva with her mother, Magdolna Adam. into the current. of the time. I shared our only toy, my doll, We too were discovered. I recall it as if with Vali. Mother tried to keep us clean with it were yesterday. It was in the late after- a washcloth, but most of the time, we felt I was immersed into a small wooden noon of a dark, cold day in early 1945. I was grimy. tub of warm water, and the filth was washed too weak to walk, so my mother carried me The money and valuables we escaped away. This was the first bath I’d had for a in one arm while holding Vali’s hand with with did not last, and our rescuers needed very long time. I stopped crying, and a sense the other. We got to the Danube and stood cash to feed us. Mother, an amazing knitter, of calm and safety came over me. That feel- at the end of the line. I heard crying, worked day and night to produce saleable ing of warmth and coziness had to last for begging, screaming, praying; then shots, or barterable items. I can still hear the a long time. Vali too was bathed, and we followed by a splash, a thud, and gurgling. muted sound of the knitting needles as we both got some hot milk. That is one of the The river was red with blood and full of went to sleep and as we awakened. Our job few good memories I have from those years. floating bodies. We were shaking from was to roll the yarn into balls, and unwind Cellar living was hard on our health. the cold and the fear. Mother said to us, it for her as she knitted. I was malnourished, and I contracted an “Close your eyes and ears, you will feel We stayed in windowless, confined plac- infection that led to a constant low-grade warmer.” By the time our turn came, only es, and when we had to be moved, it was fever. My mother had to hide my ailments two Hungarian Arrow Cross men were left. always at night. I became used to dark, air- from our rescuers. She was worried that if One wrapped a cord around us; the other less spaces, and could no longer remem- they found out I was sick, they would make aimed. Then, suddenly, the latter lowered ber the feeling of fresh air and sunshine, us leave. his weapon and said to my mother, “You or the feeling of being among people. One time, as we were cramped togeth- dirty Jews, I recognize you. You lived in the Childhood remembrances have marked er in a storage area, flat on a wooden shelf, same house as I did before the war. If you my life and haunted my dreams for years. with our faces nearly touching the shelf promise to testify for me when this is all Perhaps because I have a form of dyslex- above, our building was hit by a bomb. over, I will save you and the brats.” ia, I have instinctively learned to visually This must have been toward the end of Of course, Mother agreed! Then, he said, etch these events into my mind. Once, as we the war, when Budapest was under attack. “I will loosen the cord and shoot, but not to were transferred from one hiding place Vali and I were soundlessly crying, chok- kill. Don’t forget who saved your life. You to another, we were discovered. Vali and ing back our tears as everything rocked Contined on next page

22 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

will be found when you will be needed to bers. She was crying violently, beating In the little guesthouse where I live, the testify.” I was still clutching my doll. The her bald head against the wall as people doors and windows are always kept open cord was loosened, and he fired. Mother tried to comfort her. Much later I found except when I go to sleep. I do not feel was grazed in her arm. We fell into the ice- out that she had just returned from the comfortable in crowds, I cannot handle any cold water. There were some tree roots concentration camps, and that she was the violence anywhere, not even in movies. and other outcroppings that kept us from sole survivor of her family. She was only After all the years of feeling dirty, I need floating down the river. Mother told us to 16. My mother sort of adopted her. She to take two showers most days and wash be very still, not to wiggle. ended up marrying my mother’s only liv- my clothes after one wearing. And I can’t And then, a miracle! We were pulled out ing brother Jozsef, and became my aunt. relax. Because I survived while most of my of the water, taken, soaking wet, to an She was very damaged by her experiences family did not, I feel I must always be pro- apartment, where we were washed with in the concentration camps, but she was ductive. I am always multitasking. While I warm water and given hot drinks and dry a loving aunt. am a multi-medium artist and silversmith, clothes. We were ushered into a dark room, I am not surprised that she was so I could never learn to knit. My mother was crowded with people. The windows were injured. I did not spend any time in con- so impaired by her losses that we did not covered. I could only see their forms as they centration camps, I did not see my parents talk about my childhood until years later lay on the floor. We slid into an empty space, murdered, yet I’ve been emotionally and when I needed explanations for my recur- and rested among them, Mother holding physically harmed. I still carry the scars ring nightmares and memories. I do not Vali and me in each of her very thin arms. make Holocaust art. My art is to help me There seemed to be some order in the to heal. Before we escaped from Budapest care we received over the next few days. in 1956, I could not return to the spot on Food was distributed, and bathroom breaks the bank of the Danube that would have to an outhouse were organized. Yet, peo- been our doom. ple spoke in muted tones. The air was stale with the odor of unwashed, sweaty bod- AFTER THE WAR ies and clothing. Thin, depressed people Laci Hantos wanted to take revenge stared at one another with vacant eyes. against the Hungarian Nazis, the Nyilasok. He One morning the door opened, and two joined the Communist party and Secret armed, uniformed men stood before us. Service, and became chief of the Budapest I shrank with fear and burrowed into my Secret Police. Laci and his wife adopted Vali, mother’s arm. Seeing me so agitated, Vali and she had a very privileged life. I spent followed my lead. One soldier noticed and many weekends and vacations with them, walked up to us. He reached into his pock- Magdolna and Mozes Adam, Budapest, 1940. because Vali and I were very close. et, took out something, broke it in half, stuck Laci was able to document that most one piece into my mouth and the other of our family was murdered by the Nazis. into Vali’s. For the first time in my memo- of those nightmarish years. After 20 years Only one of my mother’s siblings survived, ry I savored the gift of chocolate. To this of working on and off with a psychologist Jozsef Kohn, as well as one of my mother’s day chocolate means all is OK in my life. specializing in trauma therapy, I am a rel- aunts and two uncles. However, my moth- Meanwhile, the other soldier pulled down atively functioning human being, most of er could not accept that. Hoping that the window covers, letting the morning the time. I have managed to achieve the someone would come back, she poured light stream in. Being blinded by the light majority of my life goals, but whenever a new over every posted list. Our former apart- was at once painful and pleasurable. trauma appears in my life, I experience a ment had been confiscated by the Hun- We were told, “These two soldiers are relapse. And I still have major issues and garian Nyilasok, and was now occupied. part of the liberating forces of the Sovi- phobias to deal with on a daily basis. We went back to my grandfather’s manor et Union. Budapest is under siege. The Though I may feel myself choking on house, knowing that if anyone was alive, Russian and German armies are fighting unexpressed emotions, I still can’t make they’d go back there. The main house was in the streets. The Soviets are taking the a sound when I cry. When eating, I have to taken over by the Soviet forces for their city, street by street. From now on we remind myself not to devour each morsel, headquarters. We ended up staying with are allowed to go into the yard in small but to chew and swallow slowly. And, of the family of my governess, the last place groups. We no longer have to be afraid of course, nothing goes to waste. I still recoil I knew before the sky fell in became the the neighbors. However, we can’t walk out from uniforms and guns. I fear any large first place to stay when the storm seemed on the street yet, because of the flying body of water. I work out in a swimming over. bullets.” Mother took us out into the spring pool at my club several times a week, but I had nightmares. I was feverish and sun. I barely had enough strength to walk, I can’t dunk my face in the water. I feel weak. I could only consume broth or soup. but for the first time in years I was sitting claustrophobic in elevators, small hallways, I was taken to a hospital where the doctor in the sunshine, seeing a world I barely or any enclosure. I do not go in a subway told my mother, “Save the food, let her die.” remembered. alone, no matter how far I must travel, even But Mother wasn’t going to give up! It took A few days later, I awoke to the screams if it means walking a long distance. I always a year, but she nursed me back to health. of young woman whose head was shaven look for the exit signs. I never sit with my Mother received a letter that would and whose arms were tattooed with num- back to a door or a window. Contined on next page

23 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

change my life forever. She told me that in fear of deportation, many of the sur- In our communist world, my parents she had to leave me with my governess for viving Jews changed their last names to were in constant fear for my safety. When a couple of days, but she would return with Hungarian ones. The war had ended, but I was 12, they betrothed me to the son of a big surprise. not the anti-Semitism. Our name became a Jewish family friend in the hope that if Years later I found out that the letter “Rozgonyi.” My father was against commu- something happened to them, or if they had been from my father’s best friend, Jozsef nism, and never joined the party. Now we were deported, I’d be cared for and have Rosenberg. The two men had made a pact: had two things against us, and became a place to stay. I am convinced that the whoever survives will take care of the other’s undesirable enemies of the state. We only reason we were not deported during family. Jozsef Rosenberg was ready to fulfill were blacklisted and subjected to house this era was because of Laszlo Hantos. When his commitment. He offered to marry my searches and penalties on a regular basis. the revolution broke out in October 1956, mother and to adopt me. He was a master I didn’t fit in at school. Scrawny, small my father repaid his debt to Hantos for craftsman in furniture. My mother was 25 and sickly, I did not look or act like the other saving us during the Holocaust by hiding years old, a widow, alone with a child, and kids. I was singled out and ridiculed because him and some of his colleagues from the almost everyone she loved was dead. my parents wouldn’t let me participate in angry mob for three months until the This very good man offered security and any communist youth activities. I was an Russian Army arrived and defeated the love for both of us. My birth father’s only revolution. surviving sibling, a psychologist, believed However, we were no longer safe in I was too traumatized and ill to be told Hungary, and so on December 20th, 1956, about my family, and I was not told the my parents, my two sisters and I escaped truth for many years. to Austria through snow-covered ditches Mother came back with a short, hand- while Russian flares lit up the sky. The some man with black hair. She told me, “This ordeal took over 6 hours on foot. We had is your father; he came back.” We went to nothing but the clothes on our backs Budapest to start a new life together. Father and food for one day. We arrived at an was very good to me; I felt safe in his arms. Austrian border town in the middle of the He carried me when I was too weak to walk. night. The Red Cross gave us some hot He took me to doctor after doctor, hospi- drinks, food, and let us rest on cots. In the tal after hospital, trying to find a cure for morning they brought us to Vienna. We me. I remember fondly that at the dinner registered with HIAS, and spent 9 months table, when he found something “extra spe- in Austria in a Jewish displaced persons cial delicious on his plate,” he would ask camp. I was 15 when we arrived and I spent me to close my eyes, open my mouth, and Eva with her daughter and granddaughter, 2018. my 16th birthday there. Ironically, it was give me that exceptional morsel. Then he the first time I felt happy. The young peo- would ask me to describe the taste. This ple in the camp organized and started a became our game until I got my strength excellent student except for a writing disabil- school. We were teachers to the young ones, back. He too had lost almost everyone in his ity that was diagnosed many years later and students to some of the older ones. I family, 10 siblings, his parents and lots of as dyslexia. It took much creativity, effort was accepted and for the first time in my cousins. He found a bomb-wrecked prop- and ingenuity to hide it and compensate young life I felt popular and attractive. erty in Ujpset, a suburb of Budapest. The for it. I belonged! I had hope in a new start, livable area was very small, but we made When I was 10 ½ years old, I got my and was eager to leave and forget all my it work. We moved in with his two surviving period and overnight I ceased being the unhappiness. sisters, Julcsa and Olga. Olga, my favorite, scrawny girl I had been. But my parents was bedridden, because of multiple inju- still treated me and dressed me as the AMERICA ries she incurred in the camps. We shared 10-year-old I was. Again, I felt ridiculous We arrived in the U.S. on September 11, a bed and alcove together. We became very and miserable, not fitting in with my 1957, and with the help of HIAS, we went close, but she died a few months later. My classmates. Father, an old-fashioned man, to Los Angeles, where our sponsor, my father’s only living brother Miklos never came thought it was no longer proper for me father’s brother, Miki, lived. I was ecstat- back to Hungary. He ended up in the US. to sit on his lap. I felt rejected, especially ic. But it was not the end of our difficulties. We few survivors were fortunate to be since my two little sisters enjoyed his We ended up in East LA, where most of our alive, but we felt displaced, scattered, cuddles. Aunt Julcsa chose that awkward neighbors spoke Spanish and were in sim- very much alone, and we clung together time to tell me about my real father. I ilar situations as we were. for a sense of belonging and security. felt devastated, betrayed and rejected. We had to find our way and earn our Father built a workshop, and slowly, he Although I know my parents acted out of keep. My father got a job with a measly added rooms, eventually ending up with a love and a belief that it was best for me, pay. My mother slaved, taking care of old three-bedroom home with a very strange the trust in my parents was damaged for women; my two little sisters were in ele- floor plan. years to come. To cope with this new reality, mentary school. At 16 ½, I realized I could During the Stalin era, life was difficult I immersed myself into reading, theater and no longer be a “kid.” I needed to help out. in Hungary. The borders were closed, and music, and lived in the fairy tale world of Still, while I spoke three languages, English people felt oppressed and starved. Living my imagination. Contined on next page

24 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

was not one of them. I was enrolled in an I was a teacher’s assistant, a preschool promise to my beloved parents, I felt proud ESL program at Belmont High. Five months teacher. I taught art at Hebrew Sunday and fulfilled. later, I took a test that enabled me to start school. When my kids were of school age, Between 1990 and the present, my life working. My parents were against it; they I went back to Cedars Sinai Hospital’s Car- took on many spins and turns. It seems wanted me to finish my education. I felt I diology department fulltime and was “on that destiny wanted me to prove that I had needed to contribute, and promised them call” in the evenings and weekends for been worth saving. In 1994, I was a pas- I would eventually get an education. extra money for the more than 35 years I senger in a car that was pushed into an My first job was as a shipping clerk at worked there. I discovered art. It became a embankment as we returned from the Sierras $40 a week. My parents wanted to marry passion and over the years, starting with Mountains. My injuries were very serious. me off, preferably to some established Jew- painting, ceramics, sculpture, I became a That I am alive, and walking, is a miracle. ish European man, who would take care silversmith, creating one-of-a-kind wear- The injuries have affected my spine and of me. I was not at all ready to be the wife able art. I never stopped going to school, my shoulders for the rest of my life. of an older man. I was 17 and naïve. My because I love school and I promised it In 2001 I was diagnosed with stage three dream was to become a real American. to my parents. I tried to take one or two breast cancer. I underwent chemotherapy In 1959, I got a job at Mount Sinai Hospi- university courses each semester at night and radiation for over a year, and survived tal’s Department of Cardiology that lasted school. it. I was not going to let cancer kill me after until 1994. I enjoyed motherhood more than any- what I went through in life. I retired from I met a UCLA psychology student. He thing and tried to give my children the life the medical field in 2005. was 21, and just as innocent as I was. We I was never lucky enough to have. My chil- I do not think retirement means you stop being productive, it means one has to concentrate and focus on other areas. The past 10 years, I have been a “surviv- al witness speaker” for the Los Angeles Holocaust museum. I am sent to commu- nities and schools to advocate against prejudice and bigotry. I volunteer in the- aters, playhouses, film and art festivals, and other cultural events. I am still func- tioning as the event coordinator for my Jewish-renewal community. I work and create with fellow artists on a regular basis. Eva with her son and grandson. Eva with her two sisters. I try to travel at least twice a year. I read, I enjoy life. To take care of my health and spine, I work out in the health club several had an immediate connection. He became dren and I travelled together every school times a week, and I have physical therapy my mentor, my tutor, my best friend, and vacation. I introduced them to music, art, every week. I have family and friends with it grew into love. We were married in theater. I continued taking classes at night whom I share the pleasures and responsi- December 1960. I was 19, he was 23. He school whenever possible. bilities of life. was working on his PhD, I was support- In 1985 we were told that my mother I’ve been blessed this year with my lovely ing us. We were happy, we had freedom, had 6 months to live. I moved into the guest 22-year-old granddaughter living with me independence, and we travelled. He had house to be near her. At that time, my while she is applying to graduate schools helped me to become the American I employer offered to pay for my MBA. I and working part-time. Although I know it always wanted to be. We played house and had to grab that! I worked during the day is only until she gets her own life togeth- taught and learned from each other. My and went to university in the evening, all er, I enjoy her presence in my life and the first child, a boy, was born in 1963. My second while taking care of my mother at night. gift to get to know each other. child, a girl, was born in 1966. I had every- The schedule was grueling. My remark- At 78, I feel I have lived a relatively suc- thing I wanted and dreamed of: an Amer- able mother died in October 1987. She cessful and productive life. I feel blessed. ican professional husband, two beautiful, was only 67, but after such a journey, it I am comfortable. I have all I need, and healthy children and I was contributing to was her time to rest. I was looking for a when I’ll leave this earth, I will be able to society as an American. liberal-progressive congregation to say leave something for my children and grand- In 1968, my beloved father died of a mas- Kaddish for my mother. I was introduced children. I still have hopes and aspirations sive stroke at age 56. We were devastated. to B’nai Horing, where I’ve been a member to fulfill: places to see, art to create. I am My mother, who became legally blind, was and taken on the responsibility of event content and feel truly blessed. I have left with two teenagers and no insurance. coordinator. After my mother died, I pur- two remarkable, established, productive, My husband and I divorced in 1970. We chased the property from my mother’s healthy children, two fabulous grandchil- were young, naïve and inexperienced. estate, I have been living in the guest house, dren, loving family and friends, and a Being a single mother with two small and renting out the main house. supportive community. I feel loved and children in the 70s was challenging. At first, I In 1989 I graduated with a double Mas- respected. worked where I could be near my children. ters from Antioch University. I kept my I have lived a good life. n

25 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

Editor’s note: In our 2009 issue, Volume XVII, we published an article under the title,“Do DO YOU KNOW ME? You Know Me?” Its author, Dr. Wladyslaw Sidorowicz, realized as a young adult that the man who had raised him was not his biological father. Because his relationship with this raging CONTINUED … alcoholic had always been stormy, he was not surprised by this discovery. But when he By Izabella Nagle learned that the woman who had always shown him tenderness and love was not his natu- ral mother, he was deeply shocked. After many years of searching for the truth, Dr. Sidoro- wicz has but one undeniable fact: his DNA indicates beyond all doubt his Jewish heritage. Here, his daughter Izabella Nagle writes about her father’s ongoing quest for his identity.

war with some man whose people were being actively sought out for destruction? Who? How? Where? We talked about dif- ferent possibilities. My father spoke about this to anyone who would listen, especially his elderly Jewish patients, survivors of the war who spent their summers in the Catskills. As it turned out, one of his patients, Bluma Z., came from the same town (Brody, then Poland, now Ukraine) and was familiar with my grandmother’s name. She recalled her uncle, Dr. Zygmunt Barak, who was a dentist with a practice in Brody. As it turned out, my father knew this name. This was the dentist that employed my Grandma as a cleaning woman. My father Dr. Zygmunt Barak, killed during the Holocaust. was overjoyed. Finally, here was someone who either knew or could confirm some of the pieces of information that we had! As long as I can remember my Dad has We had a picture of Grandma in front searched for the true identity of his father. of Dr. Barak’s office, proudly wearing a new At any family function, as conversations coat that she was able to purchase with around the table drifted from memories to her wages. Bluma shared a picture of her stories, funny or sad, he would quietly slip uncle with his wife and another couple, away, pick up a book and either read or smiling into the camera, also in front of that thumb through pictures of people long gone, office. As they spoke, a story emerged about a swept away by the ravages of war. He had hiding spot that was built under the pigsty so little to go on at first. Silence from his on my great-grandfather’s farm. Bluma told mother, but a certainty that because of us that, yes, that was where her uncle hid, but his blood type, he was not a relative to decided to leave it after the Germans left the man that raised him as his own. We Brody and the Soviet Army was rumored would talk and guess at possibilities: was to be within weeks of entering. Dr. Barak he the result of love or violence? Rus- decided to move his hiding spot to a con- sian or German soldier? He went through vent in the area, but he was killed when the dates and movements of different armies, Ukrainians, sympathetic to and armed by researched possibilities and reached a num- the Nazis, heard that there were Jews and ber of conclusions that would change when Poles being hidden by the nuns. a new variable would pop up from a new Bluma said that the monastery was book. All this changed in the Fall of 2006 leveled and everyone inside, including her with a DNA test that came back with a uncle, was killed. As my father and Bluma description of Dad’s genes as “Semitic.” sorted through the details and dates they The day we received his test, we were knew, my father began to wonder if it was shocked. How was this possible? How could possible that Dr. Barak had fathered him. Grandma get pregnant in the middle of the Contined on next page

26 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

My grandfather was sent to Siberia by the biologically related to him. It was now Soviets at the beginning of the war and was official: he was not a “bastard child,” but a presumed dead, and Dr. Barak’s wife and Jewish “hidden child.” children reportedly perished in the ghet- We were at a complete loss. In my free THE LIBERATION to. Would it be possible that something time I would pursue leads. I looked at Pol- kindled between my grandmother and the ish files for “Zegota,” the organization that The news was encouraging man she was hiding? Bluma seemed to hid and placed children, and asked the The allied troops advanced realize where my father’s thoughts were researchers at Yad Vashem to point me to There was Hope heading. She became very uncomfortable where I could find any records of children After dreadful and dark days and agitated when he suggested that maybe being placed with families in the region of she could also be tested by Family Tree Brody. We had no name for my father, but Persecuted and considered we knew that he was a baby when he was Unworthy to live given to Grandma, because he is around 6-9 months in the first picture he appears We stayed in shelters in, in Brody, in the spring of 1944. How many Afraid from the Daylight infant boys could there be on such a list, in that time frame? If we could only find I was One year old such a document, then we would have some I hardly knew Him definite answers, we thought. Yad Vashem was overwhelmed by the But I loved Him scope of the research involved and the He was my Daddy uncertainty that it would yield any fruit, A certain day, He did not return and so they declined to help. Once again, Desperately I kept waiting just as we were beginning to run out of steam, help came from one of my father’s As a prayer, before sleeping patients, who was moved by his story. I whispered His name She suggested that her daughter, Melody, had extremely good research skills and Anxiously we waited for the lib- would be willing to help. She was right! eration Melody’s skill and intuition led us right The day will soon come that I will back to ... Dr. Zygmunt Barak. We still didn’t not whisper His name any more Dr. Wladyslaw Sidorowicz in 1980, age 35. have a DNA sample, but technology has moved at an incredible pace and we dis- Our liberators were amongst us covered that we had other options now. Amidst general joy DNA. She said “That’s not possible and why Specifically, it was now possible to submit do you want to be Jewish?! It is not good pictures for a service that uses a comput- We had overcome or easy to be a Jew. You don’t even realize er logarithm to compare facial features The ruthless SS terror how much anti-Semitism is out there. You in a process known as “DNA Facial Rec- Day after day should stay what you are!” She left the office ognition.” We submitted a close-up of Dr. Holding Mummy’s hand unhappy but not before she gave him her Barak’s face and a close-up of my father’s phone number in Israel with instructions face from a picture where we judged them We went to the train station to call her if he found anything new. to be of similar age. Waiting for survivors At this point the incessant cycle of hopes The report findings were that there was raised and then dashed again began to wear a 100% match for head pattern and chin Holding His picture in my hand on my father, and his health became com- pattern, and nearly 90% match for eye and I searched through the masses promised. So much time had passed since eyebrow patterns — all in all, 82.26% total all these things took place that we found match in a test where anything over 50% There came fewer and fewer trains ourselves with many plausible theories but is considered “significant”! I kept whispering His name very little actual information that could be Did we find our family? Is it possible that confirmed. We did, however, learn enough 75 years after these events took place, we Did He forsake me to realize that our next step had to be to found my father’s people? We are cautious- I loved Him so much question whether my grandmother was in ly optimistic. This technology is relatively After all these years fact my father’s mother. We tested the new and until we have a DNA sample, we I still wait for Him only close family member still alive (my cannot be 100 percent sure. I have called father’s niece). When the results came back, the number in Israel that Bluma left for my My Daddy we were once again completely shocked: father and spoken with Bluma’s son and there was 0% DNA relationship between my daughter-in-law. They haven’t said “yes” father and his niece. This meant that nei- to a DNA test, but they haven’t said “no” By Norbert Vos-Obstfeld ther of the parents who raised him were either. They are considering it. n

27 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

This article is adapted from Chapter 3 of the dissertation abstract, The Saved and their THE SAVIORS Saviours, A Comparative Study of the Testimonies of Sixty Jews who were Hidden by By Ingrid Kellerman-Kluger Non-Jews, 1941-1945; Sheffield University, M.Phil., 1995. At the time of this research, most rescuers had already died. Only those who were know- ingly hiding Jews and who, by this act, endangered their own lives are presented. After the war, many of the rescuers were themselves forced to leave their hometowns, either because of the antagonism of their neighbors on discovering that they had been harboring Jews, or because they themselves belonged to a minority that was ‘transferred’ to another area. Some left their homes for economic and family reasons; others went because of hardships, such as their farm being destroyed or their father being shot. Although, on the whole, the witnesses tried to maintain contact, and in some cases man- aged to stay in touch with the offspring of their rescuers, their accounts are based mainly on their own memory. Since most of the witnesses were minors, their information may not be complete or totally accurate. For the entire dissertation, with full testimonies, see the following: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gYClrLO63rs7Ixbkox68AfWrESbU7X5F

Various questions have been asked Poland, revisited Poland in 1978 with the about what motivated the Saviors, and purpose of interviewing rescuers, and what differentiated these few special peo- managed to find seventeen who were will- ple from their neighbors. For example, Arieh ing to be interviewed. On the basis of L. Bauminger, asked the following in his study these and additional published accounts of The Righteous Among the Nations: and archive material of Jews and Poles, “Who, then, were our Righteous People, she draws her conclusions. The following what were their promptings—in town and excerpts are from her book, When Light village, peasants and workers, writers and Pierced the Darkness: teachers, physicians and professors, cler- “I found that lower class individuals show ics and agnostics, soldiers and diplomats, no special propensity for Jewish rescue. Fewer rich and poor alike, and of many national- peasants became rescuers than their num- ities—Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Austrians, bers in the general population should have Danes and Dutch, and not entirely absent warranted. As expected, the intellectuals were in Nazi Germany itself? What inspired them?”1 more prone to Jewish rescue than any other Here is his answer: “Some had Jewish segment of the population. Proportionate- friends before the war and clung to them ly, there were as many middle-class persons fearlessly. Some had perhaps never known among rescuers as in the population at large. a Jew before, but were men and women Class affiliation, then, was only weakly relat- of integrity and a sense of justice that for- ed to Jewish protection. tified them to champion the persecuted. Political involvement per se does not Quite a number were progressives, people seem to be related to Jewish rescue. The of liberal views, Socialists, themselves under traditionally anti-Semitic Polish Catholic Gestapo suspicion or torment. There were Church had no uniform wartime policy many believers in racial equality. There were regarding Jewish extermination. Absence priests and monks and nuns under impul- of an official posture left much latitude for sion of faith and mercy …. But, in the main clergy and the lay public. As a result, the it was the common folk that Jewish parents clergy responded in a variety of ways, rang- were ready to entrust their children for ing from denouncements to self-sacrifice. safekeeping, and even when duress or death Only a minority of the Poles I interviewed stopped the payments pledged for that directly were deeply religious; these few charge, the quick affection of the foster credited their religious convictions with parents was still a guarantee of ultimate prompting them to initiate and sustain salvation …. Modesty and humility were Jewish rescue. Some members of the cler- the common virtues of all these Righteous gy were known to urge their parishioners to People.” 2 support Nazi policies of Jewish extermina- Nechama Tec, herself a survivor from Contined on next page

28 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

tion. Some Jews turned away by friends “Hatred of the Nazis.” members or other lodgers were not displaced received aid from total strangers.” 3 “Loyalty.” by the hidden, so rent was not required. Dr. Tec says that the Polish rescuers The definition ‘Religious Humanitarian’ In Western countries, such as Holland, in her study did not fit into their milieux, may refer to the Savior’s own beliefs or to Belgium and France, board includes rent. and were therefore less constrained and the advice of the local priest. The money was often supplied by an influenced by their neighbors’ views. She underground movement. Also, in these found that those who were prepared to RELEVANCE OF NATIONALITY – RELIGION: countries, the survivors could sometimes hide only for the money were unreliable. After World War One, the distribution live relatively openly, the girls working for My analysis also shows that the indi- of ethnic minorities underwent radical change their keep (more than their keep, accord- vidualist, whose main motive was human- within the borders of eastern European ing to some testimonies) in household itarian, was more often reliable and kind. states; these countries contained areas of duties, and the few hidden boys worked It is difficult to define the characteris- mixed population. For instance, in Poland on the land. Therefore ‘Work’ equates with tics and attributes of any group of people there were areas where the Ukrainians were ‘Board’. and even more so to attribute a motive for in the majority. In Czechoslovakia there ‘Large’ refers to a payment that was a their actions. In the case of heroes (here were regions where most of the citizens real incentive, if not an outright bribe. defined as people who risk their own spoke Hungarian. lives and the wellbeing of their family, To check Nechama Tec’s above-men- MARITAL STATUS: for another’s sake) their categorization is tioned theory that most hiders did not entire- Initially I believed that women, not under impossible and even obscene. ly fit into their local community, I listed all the influence of men, were more disposed The temptation to make generalizations those belonging to an ethnic minority, or to mercy and pity, and that those without is great. Exceptional cases stay in the of mixed ethnic or Christian marriages. children would be more likely to take a mind, and tend to dominate one’s think- risk which could involve the whole family. ing. For instance, an unusual trade such SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIFFERENCES: ‘Male Married’ means that no mention of as pig-slaughterer, prostitute, smuggler, Whether or not there was a predomi- children was made. streetsweeper or sculptor will be remem- nance of one class of people prepared to bered, and so will exceptional characteris- hide a fugitive seemed a relevant point. TREATMENT: tics such as extortion, religious fanaticism, ‘Socio-Economic’ is divided into: ‘Above Most witnesses, thankful that their Sav- brutality, etc. Average’ in social standing, economic or ior had enabled them to stay alive, consid- To maintain the facts and to enable both even academic level. ‘Average’ means that ered their treatment as ‘Good.’ Not too the reader and the researcher to obtain a the Savior was of the same social and eco- surprisingly, those whose only motive true picture of the rescuers and their back- nomic level as the majority of his neighbors. was money usually mistreated the victims ground, their personal details have been ‘Poor’ – mostly peasants, could, in Poland, they were hiding. assembled and arranged in tabular form. have been designated as ‘Average,’ since For statistical reasons, personal details all peasants lived in a state of poverty dif- MOTIVE: and attributes have been assembled and ficult for someone from a Western society The underlying reason for the Savior’s shown in diagrams. to imagine. For instance, a second-hand suit action as assumed by the hidden person. Scrutiny of these tables and diagrams, was considered grand compensation for Atypical: Anything that I could find to based on sixty witnesses’ reports and com- the risks they incurred, and provided food substantiate the premise, and Dr. Tec’s con- prising over eighty hiders, should help to dis- for the family for one month. clusion, that the Savior was an outsider, a pel some preconceived ideas. The tables non-conformist in his community. are based on the witnesses’ accounts. Their RELATIONSHIP OF THE PRE-WAR CONTACT BETWEEN reference number heads each column of THE SAVIOR AND THE SAVED: ATTRIBUTES OF SAVIOURS Savior characteristics. (Some Survivors were ‘Friend’ means that there had been a The full testimonies as shown in the hidden by more than one person …) The previous interchange of help and hospitality. tables and diagrams affirm many of the numerical diagrams have been classified ‘Acquaintance’ means that a family mem- findings and comments that appear in the according to the country of domicile of ber had had prior contact with the Sav- research of Bauminger and Tec. However, the majority of the Saviors listed: Poland ior, usually related to his work, and had the emphasis is somewhat different. 35; Czechoslovakia 13; The Netherlands 25. formed a favorable impression of the person. These testimonies do not support Dr. (The Saviors in the tables pertaining to ‘Stranger’ applies to a previously complete- Tec’s theory that the majority belonged to the other countries were too few to classi- ly unknown person. the ‘marginal’ peripheral community, caus- fy in a diagram.) ing them to be independent thinkers, unin- Some simplifications had to be made PAYMENT: fluenced by peer pressure. The diagrams, in the terminology of the tables: under the Most of the hosts were not in a position which sum up the tables, show that out of heading for ‘Motive’ is the term ‘Humani- to feed additional mouths for any length the thirty-five Polish Saviors, twenty belonged tarian,’ which includes sundry depositions. of time, so it was important for survival to to the majority, religious and ethnic groups. For example: be able to pay at least an adequate amount Nor was there a predominance of intellectu- “She was just a good person.” for board. als, as Dr. Tec supposed. “It was all part of his resistance to the Since lodgings in Eastern Europe were The diagrams show that of the thir- occupation.” mostly barns, stables, ditches etc., family Contined on next page

29 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

ty-five Polish Saviors, only six were in the iors possessed one exceptional feature. If poverty of a Polish peasant in 1944 can- ‘Above Average’ socio-economic class, ten one takes into consideration the homoge- not be compared to the poor of Holland. were considered ‘Average,’ and the eighteen neity of society as a whole, and the farm- The latest 2018 statistics from Yad VaSh- ‘Poor’ were peasants, living similarly to their ing communities in particular, the figures em show the number of Righteous Gentiles, neighbors, in dire poverty, on dirt floors, for atypical Saviors are extremely high. i.e. Saviors, as approximately 27,000. It should and for whom a secondhand garment was There was a disproportionally high num- be noted that these numbers do not reflect a valuable gift. The diagrams also show ber of nonconformists, whether due to the full extent of help given by non-Jews to that most of the decision makers who hid their having a different nationality, religion, Jews during the Holocaust; they are based Jews were married men, and family men, political view, profession or social standing on the documentation provided to Yad again not alone. But in Poland, where from their neighbors, they had one attri- Vashem. The total number of people who both the antisemitism and the risks were bute that set them apart from their neigh- hid a Jew can only be estimated. Some of greatest, 15 out of 35 Saviors were women. borhood community. the hidden did not survive the Holocaust, This is out of proportion when one con- The Saviors of one country should not others have since passed away, and many siders the comparative rarity of male-less be compared to another, nor should there have never related their experiences. households. be any comparisons regarding their cour- The Saviors were a small minority in a age. The circumstances and the risks were welter of enmity and indifference, who by of wide range. In Poland, in some districts, their actions saved not only Jewish lives, the whole hider’s family risked instant but to quote Kadish Luz, a former Speaker death if discovered. In Holland, the more of Israel’s Parliament, “These few saved frequent risk was internment and depor- the honor of Man.” n tation to a concentration camp for the head of the family. More Polish people Ingrid Kellerman-Kluger and her family knew the ultimate fate of the Jews and fled Berlin in 1937 and resettled in England. they knew this earlier than the average In 1949, she immigrated to Israel, where Dutch citizen. In some outlying districts of she has lived ever since. After three survi- Czechoslovakia, there were neither radi- vor friends died, Ingrid realized that they, os nor newspapers, and the hiders did and others, had never talked about their not realize the gravity of their situation. Holocaust experiences: for many years, There were parts of all these three coun- relatives and friends did not want to hear, tries where the Germans had not penetrated, and later most survivors did not want to Ingrid Kellerman-Kluger. where Jews were not known or recognized. speak about their past. Then, Ingrid found Districts occupied by antifascist partisans out about Yad Vashem’s interviews, and dis- were safer than those physically occupied covered Sheffield University’s department These statistics agree with the findings by the Germans. There were areas where for oral history. In 1991, she attended the of Dr. Tec in that most of the Saviors harboring a pig or a radio was as danger- First International Gathering of Hidden Chil- and their saved were initially strangers ous as hiding a Jew. dren in New York, where she interviewed to each other. Of the thirty-five Saviors The Saviors listed in these tables hid over 200 survivors, mostly for Yad Vash- from Poland, twenty-two were complete their protégés for differing lengths of em; and in 1995, she wrote her master’s strangers, six are defined as acquaintanc- time, under incomparable circumstances, thesis from which this article was adapted. es, only seven were friends. A comment some sharing their own starvation level When arranging for interviews days ahead, is in order here, most of those Jews living provisions, some risking little in the cha- she would not leave her phone number, within the Pale of Settlement of Poland otic times of troop and population move- because many survivors would tell her, “I had no non-Jewish friends. ment. With living quarters usually larger, couldn’t sleep at night and wanted to cancel.” A study of the diagrams for The Neth- and unannounced neighbors rarer, most erlands and for Czechoslovakia will reveal Dutch hiders were able to accommo- 1 Bauminger, A. L.: The Righteous Among the Nations, Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 1990, p. 11. similar figures for the various attributes. date their ‘guest’ within their home. This 2 Ibid, pp. 11-12 In order to verify Nechama Tec’s theo- ‘guest’ could often work, whereas the Pol- 3 Tec, Nechama: When Light Pierced the Darkness: ry of non-conformity, that there must have ish Jews were only rarely able to do so. Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland, New been something atypical about these The social and economic level of the York, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 186-188. Saviors, the witnesses were specifically Saviors has been defined as Above Aver- asked for any unusual attributes. They age, Average and Poor, assessments which remembered a dissimilarity in forty-six of are applicable and relevant only in their Correction: In the 2018 issue, Salomon the seventy-three hiders (Poland: 24 out own country, rather than in a general sense. Fachler mistakenly identified the Jew- of 35; Czechoslovakia 8 out of 13; Nether- In Poland, the disparity is much larger than ish camp in Italy that cared for him and lands 14 out of 25). in Holland. other child survivors of the Holocaust The conclusion is that the majority The so-called intellectual or academic as being in the town of Cervino. The were average, ordinary citizens. However, of Poland is far removed, not only in wealth, actual name of the town is Selvino. We as can be seen by the number of atypical but also in formal and informal education, regret this error. notations in the tables, over half of the sav- from the rest of the population. The dire

30 AS IF IT WERE YESTERDAY BOOKS

BOOKS BURIED RIVERS: family’s past, in Polish cities and remote ing as a Christian child; later, he worked A Spiritual Journey into the villages, she deepens her understanding of in the Russian army field kitchens. Other basic goodness, forgiveness and letting go, prominent survivors are Rabbi Israel Meir Holocaust and of the mysterious interrelationship of Lau, who became the chief Rabbi in Israel, By Ellen Korman Mains the living and the dead. along with his brother Naphtali Lau (Lavi), West Lake Books, 2018, 322 pp. While outwardly painting a colorful and who became the Israeli Consul General in In 2005, Ellen Korman Mains — a Jew, revealing picture of contemporary life in New York in 1981. Both brothers were lib- a Buddhist, and the daughter of Polish post-Communist Poland, she conveys an erated from Buchenwald. Also profiled is Jews who survived the Holocaust — trav- inner life of yearning, pursuit, and fear- Hungarian-born Tom Lantos who attained els to Poland to reconnect with her fami- lessness — an intimate diary of the road prominence as a United States Congress- ly’s tragic history. On a train in Germany, we are all on. She encounters unexpected man from California. In 1947 Lantos was she feels the presence of spirits who died feelings of love, joy and support from her on the SS Marine Falcon, crossing the Atlan- in the Holocaust. After this strange expe- ancestors, as well as profound sadness, and tic to the United States. His testimony of a rience, and over the span of a dozen more connects deeply with the land, eventually child who survived on very little food on visits to Poland, Korman Mains attempts reclaiming her Polish citizenship. the ship moves one to tears. to learn her family history in Poland and This book has relevance beyond the I was dreaming about food ... at the end the fate of family members in the Lodz Holocaust. Everyone has a family story: for of the line there was a huge wicker basket ghetto, Auschwitz, and other killing fields. of oranges, and a huge wicker basket of “Buried Rivers,” the title of this memoir, bananas. My mother had always taught me refers to the underground canal system in to do the right thing, and I did not know what the city of Lodz, where her mother was the right thing was, so I asked this enormous born and survived the Holocaust. But the sailor. “Sir, do I take a banana, or do I take rivers represent the submerged currents an orange?” And he said, “Man, you can of life and meaning that were damaged in eat all the damn bananas and all the damn the wake of that history, and the tides of oranges you want.” And then I knew I was the author’s own deeply personal journey in heaven. And I loaded up on bananas and as the child of survivors. oranges, and I got very sick, but I loved every Early in this venture, she observes minute of it.” the irony that she, schooled by Buddhism Among the noted French child sur- to live in the present, should make it her vivors, we learn about the Nazi hunter life’s work to grapple with demons of the whatever we missed or endured through- Serge Klarsfeld, and the international law- past. It is one of many contradictions out our lifetime, this memoir offers a tem- yer Samuel Pisar. It is noteworthy that Ouzan she resolves during her investigations into plate for finding meaning in the lost or included American psychoanalysts Henri Poland’s past and present, including her undiscovered. Parens and Anna Orenstein, and sociolo- own genealogy, and her family members’ gist Nechama Tec; each wrote a memoir. wartime experiences. The author’s decades HOW YOUNG HOLOCAUST How Young Holocaust Survivors Rebuilt of meditation practice yield a potent intro- SURVIVORS REBUILT THEIR LIVES: Their Lives is an important contribution to spection on this historical and genealog- the historical record because it focuses not ical research, leading to groundbreaking France, the United States, and Israel only on individual heart-wrenching narra- insights into the nature of forgiveness, fam- Françoise S. Ouzan tives in the different countries, but it also ily dynamics, and the forces of history. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, documents the contributions of child sur- Guided by pages of Holocaust testi- 2018, 297 pp. vivors to each of their societies. For example, mony dictated by her uncle before his Francoise Ouzan of Tel-Aviv University the American Jewish community benefitted death, each repeated journey to Poland has created a tapestry of the lives of Holo- from a revitalization of the Orthodoxy and unravels more details of her family’s story caust survivors in France, the United States, Jewish education. The young “she’erit hap- and opens new ideas for further inquiry. and Israel. Ouzan conducted numerous leta” (remnants of European Jewry) were She also travels back through the personal oral histories over many years. These, as instrumental in fighting for Israel’s War of history that led her to this quest: her Mon- well as other interview projects and histor- Independence, in creating the State of treal Jewish childhood, her rebellion as a ical records, form the core data of her book Israel in 1948, and in building the current young woman, her relations with her two and reveal to readers the lives of some state. While Jews did have to justify their parents and uncle, and then the deaths of well-known survivors. One notable exam- survival in Israel, child survivors felt an these three founding influences in her life. ple is Aharon Appelfeld, the prolific Israeli incomparable sense of belonging, derived While honoring the special history and novelist from Czernowitz, who was incar- from being with others who shared their significance of the Holocaust, at a deeper cerated in a ghetto, then deported with plight and mourned their losses. level this book addresses universal ques- his father on a forced march to a labor In France and in the United States, they tions of personal and collective destiny. As camp. After escaping the labor camp in experienced social uneasiness in the early the author assembles the puzzle pieces of her Ukraine, Appelfeld lived in the forest, pos- Contined on next page

31 BOOKS

BOOKS years after liberation. In France, these heard the sounds of the attic door being about Robert Gamzon, the founder of the youngsters became some of France’s lead- broken down. In came a man to search the Jewish scout movement in France, who ing intellectuals and professionals. Lawyer attic. More than once I saw the shadow of in the summer of 1942 instituted “The and politician Simone Veil, philosopher the searcher over me.” Sixth,” a secret rescue network, and in André Glucksman, historian and lawyer May we never forget... May 1943 went to Paris to help organize Serge Klarsfeld, psychiatrist Boris Cyrul- underground actions. And there are many nik, and writer Georges Perec are among COMBATTANTS JUIFS DANS LES testimonials from the Maghreb in the those whose lives are examined by Ouzan. “France” section. What is inspiring about Ouzan’s How ARMEES DE LIBERATION That there were many Jews in the Young Survivors Rebuilt Their Lives is that (Jewish Fighters in the armies of Resistance movements is not well-know. she does not whitewash, nor does she dimin- Liberation) This book is an attempt to set the record ish the suffering of the child survivors, By Georges Brandstatter straight and to prove that Jews were not many of whom became orphans, during Published by Ouest France, 2015, 352 pp. just victims during the war. and after the Holocaust. Rather, Ouzan During WWII Georges Brandstatter was explores with the reader the process of a child hidden with a Christian family in CHILDREN IN THE HOLOCAUST rehabilitation from massive psychic trauma. the village of Andoins. It took him 6 years AND ITS AFTERMATH: Eva Fogelman, PhD to research and deliver a little-known part of history—from 1939 to 1948—about the Historical and Psychological Studies Jewish men who fought against the Nazis, of the Kestenberg Archive GIRL IN HIDING: REMEMBRANCES Edited by Sharon Kangisser Cohen, OF A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR Eva Fogelman, and Dalia Ofer by Ellen-Ruth Karpowitz Song New York, Oxford, Berghan Books, 2017 Published in 2017 (now in paperback) Available at Amazon in paperback and Exploring children’s experiences in the Kindle versions Holocaust poses a major challenge for his- In this remarkable memoir, Ellen-Ruth torians and psychologists alike. Writings Karpowitz Song recounts with astonishing and drawings by children from the war years clarity and a touch of humor her harrow- are rare. With several important exceptions, ing experiences as a child hiding from testimony projects in the immediate post- the Nazis in German-occupied Holland war period focused on surviving adults, during World War II. Shuffled from family not children. Psychologists and historians to family over an event-filled three-year began writing on children’s experiences in period, Ellen-Ruth recalls how her saviors and later for the formation of the Jewish the Holocaust in the early 1980s, proving repeatedly risked their own lives to shield State of Israel. The testimonies of about fifty that one could indeed tackle the source hers from the atrocities of the time. Ellen- people are divided into sections—Jewish problem. Nonetheless, scholars must con- Ruth’s grown children also provide their fighters from France, Belgium, Eastern Europe, tend with the fact that research on chil- thoughts on their mother’s early history, the Jewish Brigade of Palestine, South Afri- dren in the Holocaust relies heavily on oral and share insights into how this knowl- ca—and the book includes the moving tes- testimonies, which now far outnumber edge has affected their own lives. An exten- timonies of the Mahal men, a group of for- written sources. To what extent are such sive Appendix includes documentation of eign volunteers, mostly Jewish veterans testimonies shaped by the intentions and the ordeal and a photo gallery of lives lost from US and British Armed Forces, but also outlook of the interviewers/repositories? and those left to carry on. Featured in Steven non-Jews. How does testimony change over time, and Spielberg’s SHOAH project, Ellen-Ruth’s There are interviews with Jacques Perl- what does this say about memory? To ques- amazing story is a memorable testimony man, a veteran of FFL (French Free Forces) tion the experiences of children during the of the strength of the human spirit. and vice-president of the Association of Holocaust is to engage, therefore, in a larger Here, Ellen Ruth recalls one of her nar- French Veterans in Israel, an organization epistemological debate on how we construct row escapes: “While I was up in the attic representing about 4,000 volunteers from historical narrative. This is why this edit- one morning, I suddenly heard unusual 38 countries, and with Serge Ravanel, chief ed volume, Children in the Holocaust and noises from down below. I was locked in of the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) its Aftermath, Historical and Psychological the attic and only the older daughter, Len, of the Toulouse region, who joined the studies of the Kestenberg Archive, rep- was at home. I heard her say that she did Resistance in March 1941. Serge Ravanel resents a welcome addition to the field. The not have a key to the attic door since integrated the various resistance move- editors, an interdisciplinary group, directly her mother always carried the key, and I ments on the advice of Jacques Brun- confront the questions inherent in research knew trouble had come. I moved over into schwig. Arrested in March 1943, he was on children. Their focus is the Kestenberg a large box that was pushed under the imprisoned with twenty other resistance archive, a collection of 1,500 testimonies of eaves that was our agreed-upon hiding spot. fighters and shared his cell with Raymond Jewish and non-Jewish children, collected I closed the top as best I could and soon Aubrac and Maurice Criogel. We hear also Contined on next page

32 AS IF IT WERE YESTERDAY BOOKS

from 1981 onwards by psychologist Judith Chapter 10, “War Children in Nazi Germa- soup and clothing for the “fool” no one Kestenberg and others to assess the impact ny and World War II,” deals with the suf- respects. of childhood trauma in the lives of adult fering of German children during World When war comes, everything changes. survivors. Placing this source at the cen- War II as a result of authoritarian Nation- The Nazi soldiers march into the town and ter of their inquiry, the editors invited alist-Socialist upbringings. Its strength is begin to round up Jewish boys like Milek contributors to explore its depths and its derived from its long discussion of the and Munio. Anton worries about them and limits. The result is a 12-chapter volume, morally unacceptable “German as victim” their parents, and comes up with a plan divided into five parts. The book will inter- discourse in contemporary German soci- to hide them in an underground root cellar. est advanced students and scholars in ety, and the parallel need to address the Anton’s courage and kindness shine psychology and history interested in chil- childhood war trauma of this now elderly through, proving that fierce bravery can dren’s experiences during the Holocaust generation. come from very gentle people. and testimony in general. The final section of the book is com- After the war, Milek, Munio and their The book’s thorough introduction is prised of a personal essay by a child survivor. parents, the Zeigers, immigrate to the US. well written, providing a history of chil- This moving piece closes this multi-facet- The Zeigers try to persuade Anton to dren’s Holocaust testimony and situating ed volume on a personal note, giving the last move with them, but he refuses to leave, the specific context of the Kestenberg word to a survivor. While I understand saying that he “wants to die where he was archive. The first section of the book, on this ideological position, a general con- born.” For years, Mrs. Zeiger sends him methodology, includes one chapter by psy- clusion would help to make sense of the packages of food and clothing. Because chologists Gila Sandler Saban et al. on the diversity of experiences expressed in the Anton could not read or write, he dic- influence of age, maternal and postwar tated his replies to a neighbor. On each adjustment in the lives of adult survivors. letter he drew a flower, so that the Zei- Part two, on the immediate postwar peri- gers would know the letter was from od, includes an excellent chapter by Sha- him. Then, for many years, their letters ron Kangisser Cohen on the issues raised to Anton remain unanswered and they by the testimonies collected in Poland. assume the worst. In 1988, the Zeigers Kangisser Cohen asks how children inter- discover that Anton is living in extreme preted their reality, showing how their poverty. They have a new house built for testimonies reveal their relational and emo- him, and arrange to have people care for tional worlds. Chapter 4, by Rita Horváth him for the rest of his life. The villagers and Katalin Zana, provides an extremely of Zborów then celebrate Anton as the stimulating look at the interviews collect- village hero. In 1992, Anton Suchinski was ed in Hungary at the end of the 1980s and recognized as Righteous among the Nations early 1990s. This chapter questions the book. This critique does not detract from by Yad Vashem. context in which the testimonies were gen- the overall contribution of this volume, This book is a lovely tribute to a true hero. erated and the place of the interviewer in which promises to enrich a growing body the testimony process. of scholarship. CHILD SURVIVORS OF THE Part three, on memory, coping mecha- Laura Hobson Faure HOLOCAUST: nisms and adjustment, includes a thought-pro- Sorbonne Nouvelle University voking chapter by Stephanie Young, who The Youngest Remnant and the argues that public demand has shaped an THE SECRET OF THE VILLAGE FOOL American Experience aestheticized narrative of Holocaust testi- Written by Rebecca Upjohn, Illustrated by By Beth B. Cohen mony. In chapter 8, Helene Bass-Wichel- Renné Benoit Rutgers University Press, 2018, 215 pp. haus provides insight on why certain chil- Second Story Press, Third printing, 2014 For many years, historian and psychol- dren did well after the Holocaust, while Includes a special section of family photographs ogist Beth B. Cohen has wondered about others did not through the analysis of two Available at Amazon.com the restoration of lives in America after the sisters who experienced the Holocaust This picture book tells the true story cataclysmic rupture of the Holocaust. From under different conditions. Their contrast- of an unexpected hero, Anton Suchinski, and all the newspaper and magazine accounts ing postwar lives suggest a positive con- is a good introduction to the Holocaust for of the late 1940s and early 1950s, one could nection between the experience of living young children. Munio and his younger easily conclude that the lives of survivors among one’s peers and resilience. brother Milek live in the sleepy village of were simply resumed anew, much as they Part four, on Non-Jewish victims of war Zborów, then in Poland (now Ukraine), had been for prior waves of immigrants. and Nazism highlights the interviews con- where nothing exciting seems to happen. Beth’s first book, Case Closed: Holocaust ducted with individuals who witnessed the Anton, their neighbor, is a poor man, so Survivors in Postwar America, reviewed in Holocaust as children. Katarzyna Person gentle that he won’t eat meat or harm a our 2012 issue, challenged such “happy end- addresses the Polish language testimonies fly. While the rest of the town makes fun ings” depicted in the media’s glossy pho- to ask how non-Jewish Poles remembered of Anton, the boys’ mother is kind to him, tos of smiling refugees. In this book, Beth the persecution of their Jewish neighbors. often sending her reluctant sons with Contined on next page

33 BOOKS

BOOKS addresses assumptions and distortions of station, she draws the attention of a hand- to confront its recent past. Postwar Ger- history once again, this time in the lives some young Jewish man, who introduces many’s justice system showed no intent of child Holocaust survivors. It took many himself as Serge Klarsfeld, a graduate to pass judgment on Nazi criminals, not all decades for the children to speak, and to student in political science and history. of whom had vanished to South America. come to the realization that they too are Mutual attraction soon leads to a bud- Indeed, well into the 1980s, many Nazi survivors. Here she brings these now elderly ding friendship. The lively conversations criminals lived comfortably in West Ger- voices “front and center” to the post-Ho- that animate their rambles about Paris many, exercising professions, and even locaust narrative. stimulate Beate’s thirst for learning. Upon occupying high level posts in the govern- The questions that propelled this discovering how ignorant this daughter ment and the judiciary. important work were, “How did the unique of a former Wehrmacht soldier was of the Not content with just authoring a pam- political and social context of mid-twen- still recent ignominious history of Ger- phlet on Chancellor Kiesinger’s Nazi past, tieth-century America affect child sur- many, Serge proceeds to enlighten her. in April 1968, Beate managed to corner vivors of the Holocaust? And how did Along with his mother and sister, he had him in the Bundestag, denouncing him as the children’s wartime years affect their barely escaped the fate of his father who a Nazi, and slapping him before a large adjustment? How did they come to claim perished in a gas chamber at Auschwitz. audience. The act came she says, “from a a unique identity as ‘child survivors’?” Separated during the summer vacations, younger generation to an older one. I love Using oral histories and testimonies, plus Germany. I did it as a German non-Jew, her own interviews, Beth sets out to find born in 1939, who wasn’t guilty but felt many answers. responsible.” This audacious act nearly First, why were there so many years earned her a one-year prison sentence. of silence? The marginalization and triv- She was dismissed from her secretarial post ialization of the children’s experience by at the French-German Office for Youth in everyone — including family members and Paris. But Kiesinger, having suffered public older survivors — was the main cause for humiliation in Bonn and in Brussels, lost children keeping quiet after the war and the legislative elections of September 1969. for decades thereafter. They were told to To end the outrage against the Jewish forget the past and go on with their lives. victims of Nazi barbarity by allowing their And most did everything they could to murderers to live in peace became the assimilate—even as disturbing memories mission to which Beate and Serge devoted lurked just below the surface. After years they enter into a correspondence that is sus- their lives. Even their family life was set aside of struggling with their past and attempt- tained even during Serge’s two-year military in the name of justice. To organize their ing to assimilate, at least externally, it service, mostly in Algeria. “Poeticize your activities, they founded the association wasn’t until the 1980s that they began to life,” writes Serge in one of his letters: Sons and Daughters of the Jewish Deport- organize themselves and form their own “raise it to the level of an exalting experi- ees from France. From the denunciation of identity. ence.” In November 1963, Serge and Beate Kiesinger, they began hunting the enforc- Beth B. Cohen is on the faculty at Cal- marry before a mayor, who urges them ers of the Final Solution in France, the Ger- ifornia State University, Northridge. This to become an exemplary French-German man perpetrators and their French accom- is an outstanding, scholarly work — well couple. As fate would have it, the day of plices. Their primary targets became Paris annotated, indexed, and full of statistics — their first encounter, May 11th, 1960, was SIPO and Gestapo managers Kurt Lischka yet, the stories predominate and are told the very same day that agents of Israel’s and Herbert Hagen, Vichy national police with great sensitivity. Each testimony stands Mossad kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Bue- chief René Bousquet and his representa- out, making it clear that for the youngest nos Aires! This coincidence seems to have tive in the Occupied Zone, Jean Leguay. survivors, as for the older population, “the driven their joint professional lives. Their crimes included the ordering of tor- war never goes away …” Disclosed over nearly 1000 pages, ture and execution of hostages, and the Beate and Serge Klarsfeld’s memoirs are deportation to Auschwitz of 75,000 Jews BEATE & SERGE KLARSFELD arranged in alternate chapters, beginning from the French transit camp of Drancy. with Beate’s childhood in wartime and post- Serge and Beate boldly confronted Lisch- MEMOIRES war Berlin, and continuing with Serge’s ka and Hagen in front of their residences Fayard/Flammarion,Paris 2015, 992 pp.+ traumatized childhood: a nightmare of per- in Cologne, along with death camp sur- index+illustrations secution and hiding with his parents and vivors in striped uniforms. They even In March 1960, Beate Kuenzel, a young little sister in Nice during the German occu- attempted to kidnap Lischka. Beate was German woman, leaves her West Berlin pation. The bulk of the volume is devoted briefly imprisoned in Cologne and even home in defiance of her prejudiced par- to rich accounts of a life of intense activ- in Dachau; but as a result of her defiant ents to travel to Paris, where she works ity in the cause of justice. Rather than action, Lischka and Hagen were finally tried as an au pair girl while learning French severing herself from Germany, Beate in Cologne and given long prison sentences. at the Alliance Française. One day, while resolves to become the conscience of the From then on, Beate in particular, spent waiting for her regular train at a Metro country that lost its integrity, and force it Contined on next page

34 AS IF IT WERE YESTERDAY BOOKS

years crisscrossing not only Germany, but standing up for the Roma in the former all over the world, not only to discover East Germany, and in defense of the Ser- leading Nazi criminals, but also to explain bian population of Sarajevo during the the goal of her mission to governments Balkan war. Calling Beate “a woman of TIME IS and Jewish communities. She won a small valor,” Golda Meir wrote: “Courage, convic- degree of assistance from the East Ger- tion, compassion, decency, justice, and RUNNING OUT man government. The list of countries she self-sacrifice to the point of endangering visited is simply amazing. However, to my her life, those are the words that come to RECORD YOUR STORIES personal surprise, that impressive list did mind when one hears the name of Beate WHILE YOU CAN not include Vancouver, where I was given Klarsfeld.” the honor of introducing her at one of the Meanwhile, Serge completed his law stud- Submit your largest synagogues in the city. ies, gained the reputation of a formidable law- Holocaust-related articles Beate repeatedly flew to South Ameri- yer and indefatigably researched through By e-mail only, please ca to obtain the extradition of well-known archives and other relevant materials to Nazi criminals, among them the sinister document the guilt of the Vichy regime, To: [email protected] Dr.Mengele, who performed medical experi- which collaborated so zealously with the ments on twins, Walter Rauff, the inventor Nazi murderers, and to prevent attempts at To the attention of: of the poison gas trucks, hidden in Chile, its rehabilitation. He published numerous Rachelle Goldstein, Editor Alois Brunner, the SS director of Drancy, volumes on the “final Solution” in France. who organized the death convoys out of Chief among these is his colossal Memori- WE WELCOME YOUR ARTICLES France to Auschwitz and perpetrated mass al of the Deportation of the Jews of France, murders in Nice. The East German gov- which lists by convoy numbers and sup- ernment offered to try Brunner in East porting official correspondence, names Berlin, but Beate did not succeed in com- and data of the 75,000 Jews transported pelling the Syrian dictator Hafez el-Assad and murdered at Auschwitz. There is to expel him. Her most arduous and per- also a Memorial of the Jewish Children of required minimum of 5% to be represented. haps dangerous endeavors were her trips France that were deported. She ensured that her friend Willy Brandt to Peru and Bolivia, where she succeeded Serge fought deniers of the Holocaust, became chancellor instead of Kiesinger. in having Klaus Barbie, ‘the Butcher of like Faurisson, a would-be professor at a In the final chapter of this monumental Lyon,’ extradited to France. In 1987 Barbie university in Lyon, at the same time as he volume, Serge Klarsfeld offers his reflec- was tried in Lyon, the city where he per- strenuously gathered materials to have tions on the theme of Memory. Memory petrated most of his crimes, including the pillars of Vichy — Bousquet, Leguay, Dar- is sacred: it is not to allow our Six Million dispatching, in August 1944, of the last quier, Papon, the prefect of Bordeaux who Martyrs to be forgotten, or reduced to a transport from France to Auschwitz, in had his policemen wrest even toddlers “detail” of World War II history. Reading which one of the doomed passengers was from families who hid them — tried for Serge’s conclusions, “Shraib un farshraib,” my father. Her travels were costly to her crimes against humanity. Darquier literal- the plea uttered by the great historian health: one trip during her third month ly got away with murder, as Franco would Simon Dubnov, murdered by the Nazis in of pregnancy caused the death of the not allow for his extradition from Spain. the ghetto of Kaunas, comes to mind. expected child. Bousquet was mysteriously assassinated With the assistance of Simone Veil, the Klarsfeld mission embraced other objec- before his trial was to begin. Regrettably, movement of remembrance of the Shoah tives: Beate vigorously fought antisemitism in the end, those murderers all got off produced some sixty volumes of witness and stood in defense of Israel. She inter- lightly. Serge and Beate’s son Arno, so accounts, besides a variety of projects such vened at a conference of Arab states held named after his grandfather, grew into a as museums, memorials, and other “lieux in Morocco with a plea that they let Israel formidable prosecution lawyer in the course de mémoire” (places of memory). The voices live in peace. When in 1968 a fascist clique of these trials, where he partnered with of at least some of our Martyrs are thus within the ruling communist party forced his father. Serge nourished a utopian being heard as Serge concludes: “These the majority of the Jews still living in dream that an international legion would be thousands of voices that rustle in my mem- Poland out of the country, Beate protest- attached to the penal court of the Hague, ory call on me to pursue my work as best ed against this glaring antisemitic act. In ready to intervene wherever civilian popula- as I can, so that they will be heard after they Prague she was roughed up by police for tions were threatened. have passed and I have passed.” distributing leaflets, calling on the Czech Amazingly, Beate still found time to René Goldman, PHD people to disavow the contamination of involve herself in the politics of her native René Goldman, a graduate of Colum- the regime’s antisemitism. She next con- country. She participated in the electoral bia University and a retired professor of demned a Stalinist trial in Leningrad that campaign for the Bundestag as the can- Chinese history at the University of Brit- imposed the death sentence on a Jew. didate of a seemingly insignificant party ish Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, is a Decades after the collapse of Communism destined to gain just enough votes to pre- native of Luxembourg and a child-survivor she continued her struggle for human rights, vent the neo-Nazi NPD from obtaining the of the Shoah in Belgium and France.

35 DESPITE ALL ODDS, THEY SURVIVED, PERSISTED — AND THRIVED

PROLOGUE TO MY MEMOIR Michel Jeruchim

Michel Jeruchim wrote this prologue for his upcoming book, tentatively titled: Out of the Shadows: A Child’s Journey from Nazi-Occu- pied France to Life in America. The anticipated publication date is fall 2019.

In 2008, my wife, Joan, and I received the last time. I was separated from my older the gift of our first grandchild. Perhaps siblings, dislocated from everything that motivated by this arrival, I embarked upon was familiar to me, and thrust into the hands writing an account of my life. I hesitate to of strangers. In the summer of 1989 Joan call my narrative a memoir, at least for the and I traveled to France to try to find the first dozen years or so, and especially the French Catholic family that had sheltered first five. Memoir comes from the French me during World War II. Joan, a psychol- mémoire, meaning ‘memory,’ a central ogist, insisted that we take this trip. She tenet of Jewish culture and practice. Yet, understood the necessity of opening a crack essentially, I have no recollection of the in the wall of self-protection that I had most traumatic and dramatic episodes of built around myself for decades. my life, in my first five years and in the Two years later, in the spring of 1991, in immediate postwar period. So, how could New York, I attended the First Internation- I write a memoir without a memory? al Gathering of Jewish Children Hidden Fortunately, my brother, Simon, seven during WWII. Throughout that conference, years older, and my sister, Alice, nine and immediately after, the crack grew into years older, have a sharp recollection of a major fissure that allowed me to con-

Michel, center, with sister and brother before leaving France, 1949.

me, or controlled every aspect of my life. After immigrating to the U.S., I adapted, because I had to adapt. Slowly, I became an American, and a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. I went to elementary school, high school, college, graduate school, and I built a career. I married and had children and Left, my mother; right, my father; my mother’s siblings in between. grandchildren. I lead a good life, but it’s colored by a past that’s been my constant companion. front my early experience and talk about it. How often have we heard people say Since that time I have tried, little by little, how much they regret not having inter- to grasp a tangible sense of my lost child- viewed their parents or grandparents hood. This goal took a step forward when about their family’s history while they ‘Grandpa’ with first grandchild, 2008. my brother published a memoir in 2001, were alive? Through my book, I tried Hidden in France: A boy’s journey under the to visualize that interview. But the real Nazi occupation. Strange as it may seem, incentive for my writing was an attempt many of the events from that time: they are prior to the 1991conference, my siblings to reconstruct my lost childhood, one my memory about the early years. Aside and I had not talked much, if at all, about that was shattered by the Nazis, and from Simon’s memoir, Alice has also sup- many of the details of our family life, or of that I’ve yearned to touch ever since. plemented this information with written the circumstances surrounding our disper- This reconstruction was not only to find notes and many conversations. I prefer to sal in 1942. It would have been too painful. myself as a child, but to ‘find’ my parents, think of my writing as a conversation with I have lived much longer than those whom I think about almost on a daily the reader, and like all good conversa- early tumultuous years, but their effects basis — not compulsively, not in a maud- tions, the topics meander, triggered by a have never escaped me. They loom large lin way, but with thoughts of what they word, an unspoken or hypothetical ques- in my rational and irrational thoughts, in and I have missed. I do not aim to write tion, or a random thought. my interpretation of events, and in my view history; I only wish to make a small and At the age of five, I saw my parents for of the world. Yet, they have not subdued incomplete documentary on myself. n