All these years while my children were growing up

It was too difficult for me to talk about my past. The immense terrifying madness that had erupted in history, and in the conscience of humankind was too painful. As my children grew up they started to ask questions about their grandmother and grandfather. Finally I told them a little history of the war in Europe.

The Nazi's Plan and the Final Solution

The Nazis in Germany set out to build a society in which there simply would be no room for the Jews. Toward the end of their reign, their goal changed; they wanted to leave behind a world in ruins in which Jews would never have existed. The Germans everywhere in Russia, in the Ukraine, and in Lithuania, carried out the Final Solution by turning their machine guns on more than a million Jews, who were not only killed but were denied burial in a cemetery.

The Impact of War on Jewish Culture and Memory

It is obvious that the war, which Hitler and his accomplices waged, was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory. Yet having lived through this experience, I could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was for me to speak. I had many things to say, I did not have the words to tell them. How was I to speak of what happened without trembling, heartbroken for all eternity, the hunger, thirst, fear, transport, selection, fire, chimney.

Struggling to Find Words and Sharing the Past

When it came to tell them what did happen to their grandparents, aunts, and uncles, no words came out of my mouth, we all started to cry.

Recognition and Reflection

In 1974, November, I was given a testimonial dinner for serving as post Commander of the J.W.V. in Orangeburg, New York. The editor of our town's newspaper came to our house to interview me knowing that I was a Holocaust survivor.