The Daughter of Auschwitz. My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope

Chapter Twenty-Two. We Remember

I never imagined how distressing it would be to leave Israel. Even though we had spent many rewarding years in America, returning to the United States was something of a culture shock and required some major adjustments, not just for me, but also for my family. The instant we landed in cold, wet Newark, New Jersey, I found myself pining for the sunshine and warmth of Jerusalem, along with the light, which infused colors with a vibrancy rarely replicated in the latitudes of the northeastern United States.

The sound of America was so different, too. Sirens, air-conditioning units, construction sites and traffic all conspired to create a wall of sound that reverberated off the skyscrapers. As the days passed, I yearned for the more human scale of Jerusalem’s soundscape, where the stones seemed to absorb the bustle of its narrow, ancient streets. I craved the aromas of Middle Eastern spices and cooking and missed wearing the invisible cloak of history that came from living in one of the cradles of civilization.

Over time, I became acclimatized to the sensory changes. But I struggled with the spiritual differences. We had lived an emotionally invested life for ten years in a country created as a haven for my people. America, on the other hand, is the great melting pot.

When I try to explain the reasons for how I felt, inevitably I fall back on the Holocaust and Auschwitz, because those experiences in my formative years forged the way for almost every thought I have and every action I take. I love and respect the United States. I believe in almost everything this nation stands for, and I will forever be grateful for the sanctuary it provided, along with my education, and the gift of my husband, Maier, and my family. But I was unable to disconnect from Israel. I ran up enormous phone bills calling my friends every day, pumping them for news. I devoured coverage of Israel’s culture, politics and social issues.

We bought a small three-bedroom house in Highland Park, a pleasant town on the banks of the Raritan River near Rutgers University in New Jersey. In material terms, we were comfortable, but I was overwhelmed by feelings of emptiness and uselessness.

One spring day, I was wandering with my youngest child, Shani, on the grounds of Rutgers. Crowds of enthusiastic young people were milling about the campus. I was pushing Shani in his stroller and was very much the odd person out. It was registration day, and students were signing up for classes in their first semester. My interest was piqued, and as I entered the building, a guidance counselor assumed I had come to register and ushered me into a room. Within forty-five minutes, she had convinced me to enroll at the School of Social Work. She said my age and background virtually guaranteed a full scholarship if I studied gerontology — the effect of aging on the individual and society. It was an epiphany, a moment of recognition that a portal to a new direction had opened.

Although I had started out with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, my love of literature and interest in Richard Wright had diverted me from what I now believed was my true vocation. That day felt like both kismet and serendipity. I was receiving a gift that would enable me to work with vulnerable, fragile elderly people — the very same segment of the population targeted by Hitler at the start of the war because he deemed them to be worthless. As a child, I had hardly known anyone over the age of fifty. My new life would introduce me to a diverse group of people weighed down by a broad range of challenges.

During my internship at a nursing home, I met a lovely eighty-nine-year-old woman who would sit wrapped up in a hat and coat next to a packed suitcase. She was waiting to be picked up by her son. She had been waiting for three years. He had died five years previously. I sat with her, we talked about the life she’d had with her son and she seemed to relax. Eventually, she stopped dressing up for the trip that never came and accepted that he was gone.

I remember another senior who was convinced she was being poisoned and, as a result, hardly ate anything. With staff approval, I brought in food that we ate together. Proving that her food had not been tampered with enabled her paranoia to gradually subside. Another elderly resident was constantly teetering on the edge of depression. Being outside in the fresh air seemed to keep the darkness at bay. We walked around the grounds together as often as we could, and the experience lifted his spirits.

The care that I was providing and the difference I was making were a revelation to me. There was also a reciprocal effect. I felt much less useless.

With Maier’s moral and practical support over three years — often typing my papers and covering my household chores — I earned a master’s in social work, gerontology and counseling.

A week after graduating, I began working on a home-care program for the elderly at a Jewish Family Service — a nonprofit agency that helped people regardless of their religion. It was an eye-opener. I learned more from my clients than I ever thought possible. They unburdened themselves about past traumas, fear of illness, death, abandonment and destitution. Often, all I could do was sit and listen. But just being there, I believe, is a key dynamic of the healing process. A person can change their self-image once they understand that they are truly being seen, heard and valued. I encouraged my clients to think about their past achievements and to concentrate on their strengths. Recovery wasn’t instant. But after several months of visits, there were noticeable signs of improvement. Those who had been listless and indifferent became more engaged, dressing up smartly for our sessions. They opened up more about their pasts and seemed to grow as people, deriving confidence and pleasure from accomplishments earlier in their lives.

One of my unforgettable clients was a ninety-two-year-old former lawyer. Immaculately dressed, tall, if a little stooped, he had been living alone and increasingly needed more help to maintain his independence. Over a cup of tea, the lawyer shared his background with me. He had emigrated to America all alone after the Second World War. He retrieved a photo album full of prewar pictures of his wife and children in his law office in Hungary. All perished in the Holocaust.

“Have you ever heard of Auschwitz?” he asked, uncovering a large tattoo on his forearm.

I didn’t say anything. I simply rolled up my left sleeve.

“You are my family now”, he wept.

He clenched my hand as if he’d found a lost treasure and we cried together.

I don’t often share my past with my clients, but sometimes I do when I feel it’s appropriate. For the next year, I made home visits to the lawyer where we discussed not just his grief, but also his strength. He passed away in a nursing home. In his will, he left me a beautifully carved family heirloom desk that he had brought from Hungary. It came with a note: “From my family and for my family. Keep it always and remember me”.

The desk is in my home in Highland Park. I sat there as I worked on this book. The desk will stay in my family as a reminder of the lost generations.

A few years later, during my autumn visit to Israel, I went to see another man who was alone with his memories: my father. He had lost his second wife, Sonia, three years earlier and was very lonely. I missed my return flight back to the US and, fortunately, was able to spend an unexpected additional twenty-four hours with him. We went to the bank together and then the cemetery, where he showed me his plot. With nothing else planned, we passed the rest of the time just talking and reminiscing.

At one point, he went to the bookshelf and reached for a heavy leather-bound volume. The spine was nearly three inches thick. Still vigorous at seventy-two, his fingers had no trouble pulling the Yizkor book clear, even though it weighed nearly ten pounds. A low evening sun streamed through the window of the small apartment in Tel Aviv. Dust particles sparkled in a shaft of light, illuminating his favorite chair. Outside, the traffic hummed as always. Papa placed the book on the armrest and sat down heavily.

I sat down opposite him and smiled. Smart in a V-neck sweater and blue shirt, he hadn’t changed clothes since we’d visited the bank manager a few hours earlier.

“This is my only daughter”, he had told the man. “Please treat her well if something should happen”.

I knew why Papa was troubled. He was six months shy of his seventy-third birthday. When he was ten years old, a gypsy, as the Roma were then known, predicted that he would die at seventy-two. The prophecy had sustained him through the war. In his darkest moments — and they were legion — Papa clung to the belief that he would survive. If he could avoid being killed, then maybe he could save the lives of Mama and me. Protecting us was his abiding motivation for staying alive and guided every decision he was forced to take.

My father opened the book and looked at me with sadness. I have Mama’s eyes. I reminded him of her. She was his great love.

“Read it to me, Papa”, I said.

Papa opened the cover. His fingers felt for the edges of the well-worn pages in the middle of the book. He had read this segment many times before. He still had that mellifluous tenor voice that had sung popular melodies and delivered fine speeches when he was an actor in his youth. It was no longer as powerful — age had added a brittle edge — but it was still easy on the ear.

Papa swallowed hard and his eyes moistened. I looked at him and my own eyes prickled. He had been alone with his terrible memories for so long. I was glad I was there to share them. And to remember as well.

He began to read aloud in Yiddish. His delivery and intonation were perfect. It was almost a stage reading.

“We were cut off from the outside world. Any sort of travel to a nearby town or village was strictly forbidden… There were rumors that the deportees were sent to labor camps in Germany. The word ‘concentration camps’ was also heard…a feeling reigned that something terrible was about to happen. Something compared to which, life in the ghetto was child’s play”.

Dusk was falling hard now. But Papa read on without the need for electric light. Tears trickled unchecked down the creases of his cheeks. My face was damp as well. Neither of us wanted to stem the flow. Together, we yielded to the torrent, springing from the groundwater of our past.

My father didn’t finish reading the complete story. We sat in the dark for a while. Then he stood up, went to the kitchen and brewed some tea. His sadness lifted a little.

“There’s a woman I rather like”, he said. “I am thinking about asking her to marry me. I’ve been so lonely since Sonia died three years ago. I can’t stand the loneliness, especially with you living so far away. I’m not going to ask her yet. I’m thinking of spending the holidays in a hotel with friends”.

“Papa, I’m so happy for you”, I replied. “I wish I could spend the holidays with you, but I have to go. My plane leaves at midnight”.

The taxi came and took me to Ben Gurion Airport. It was the last time the two of us saw each other. The Roma prediction came true. Born in 1910, my father died in 1983, aged seventy-two.

Mourning my father, I threw myself into my work. Several years later, I became the director of a smaller, financially strapped Jewish Family Service providing a wide range of programs. It was one of the most satisfying experiences of my professional life. The board of directors and I were constantly creating innovative ways of fundraising to keep our programs going, including counseling, services for the elderly, jail visitations, employment services and mentoring programs. The Jewish Family Service’s Café Europa program, for example, enabled lonely, socially isolated Holocaust survivors to connect with each other and find companionship.

As a former refugee, I was keen to help other fugitives from tyranny. Seventy-five refugees escaping life-threatening anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union were given shelter, food, English lessons and toys for the children. We sprang into action when Albanians and Serbs fought a brief war in Kosovo. Some arrived with nothing but a plastic bag of essentials. Always at the back of my mind was the image of me as a child entering New York Harbor on the refugee ship from Europe. This new generation of asylum seekers deserved the same opportunities as I had.

In 1998, I received an urgent call from my doctor. I had stage-two breast cancer, required surgery and needed to start treatment immediately. Though I had experienced life struggles before, this was a completely new battleground for me. My own body was attacking me this time. With excellent medical care and family support, however, I was able to go into remission within a year and return to full-time work. I felt as if I’d survived again.

Days after the shocking attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, our small office was flooded with young Jewish and non-Jewish families fleeing Manhattan, trying to find shelter in New Jersey. We offered counseling and helped them figure out new lives. One young woman was clutching the hand of her three-year-old daughter. “I was picking up my daughter from the nursery across the street from the towers as they crumbled and people were jumping to their deaths”, she said. “I thought the US was under attack. Just in case my daughter and I would be separated, I put her name and my phone number on her back in lipstick so she could be found”. We found her temporary accommodation and psychological support, until she was ready to return to New York.

A week after the attack, together with a colleague, I went to Manhattan to ease the anguish of other survivors. We’d been asked to help fifteen male executives who were traumatized after identifying the remains of their coworkers. In common with every other American, 9/11 was an unbelievable new experience for me; warfare at its most unconventional, but warfare just the same. At first, I stood in front of the shell-shocked ensemble, not knowing what to say. But then I began to talk about my war and what had happened to me, to let them know that I understood what they were going through.

It was as if a dam had been breached. Bottled-up emotions burst forth. They wept, removed their jackets, loosened their ties and began to express shock, disbelief, pain and guilt that so many of their close colleagues had been killed, while somehow, they had escaped. I understood, and I identified quite strongly with their emotions. As we talked, I tried to provide them with the hope that in time, they would recover, just as I have.

The group counseling session was interspersed with spiritual songs, led by one of the executives who was a church minister. The communal singing also helped to ease their pain. After several hours, some came to acknowledge that gratitude at having survived was a more constructive emotion than guilt. That was progress. On the way home to New Jersey, my colleague and I discussed the strength needed to get by in life and decided to set up support groups for people affected by the terrorist attack. That project lasted for years.

I only played a small part in the aftermath of 9/11. But the experience reinforced my conviction that sharing my Holocaust story publicly could be a powerful force. Talking about it not only reminds people of the evil that took place, but can also help them to see the ability in each of us to overcome.

I began public speaking in the early 1990s when I was fifty-four years old. My first engagement was at a school, with an audience of 200 children aged twelve to fourteen. I was outlining how my mother had sacrificed so much for me. An image of Mama floated in front of my eyes as I described her giving me her last piece of bread and saying, “I’m not hungry”.

Suddenly, I started crying. Me. The girl who couldn’t and wouldn’t cry in Auschwitz. I was extraordinarily embarrassed by my tears, and to my surprise, the children began applauding. I was deeply touched by their response and by the letters that followed, especially one from a twelve-year-old girl. “Mrs. Friedman”, she wrote. “I’m sorry your experience was difficult to share, but thank you. I now know how important family is. I will be nicer to my brother”.

The reaction from the students spurred me on to share my experiences far and wide. Supported by Maier, I spoke at synagogues, churches, colleges and prisons, where even the toughest criminals could be moved, learn something about themselves and perhaps change as a result.

“I’m not Jewish and I knew nothing about the Holocaust”, wrote one inmate. “But I never realized before just what violence and cruelty can do. I am in prison because of my own actions, but you were imprisoned by blind prejudice and hatred”.

The need to remind people to be vigilant about anti-Semitism and hatred is constant. The Raritan Valley Community College near my home in New Jersey established the Institute of Holocaust and Genocide Studies in 1981. I joined the committee to bolster their mission to educate students and others about people’s capacity for inhumanity and injustice, as well as the importance of nurturing compassion and resilience. I believe passionately in sharing the lessons of the Holocaust. Maybe if one can teach people to identify the danger signals, there’s a chance of preventing another round of genocide.

Every year, thousands of students come to the college to hear survivors share their stories. Invariably, a flood of letters follows, with young people unburdening themselves of a multitude of personal struggles, including parental divorce, bereavement and bullying. Regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation, people have the same need for intimacy, inclusion and safety. At speaking engagements across the country, I have tried to use my story of survival to instill audiences with hope, courage and self-confidence. They often seek answers to life’s fundamental questions. They’ve asked whether I believe in God, if I could trust people or whether I could forgive.

I answer as honestly as I can. I do believe in God, but not necessarily the biblical one. Trust is essential and I never lost my faith in humanity, despite my experiences. As for forgiveness — in Judaism, only the living can forgive. I have no authority to forgive on behalf of those who have been slaughtered.

We all hope to be remembered by family, friends and colleagues. We write books, build monuments and establish institutions to attest to our existence. But the murdered millions of the Holocaust left few traces. An inferno engulfed everything about them, including their legacies. I speak to honor and remember mothers, fathers, children and grandparents who went to their deaths because of our religion. I’m always guided by the scene witnessed by my father in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, as a rabbi climbed into a cattle car to Treblinka.

“Save yourself, my sons”, the rabbi had implored. “And remember me”.

I fervently hope my efforts have not been in vain and that my audiences will keep the memory of the Shoah alive. There has, however, been a price for committing to a life of remembrance. After my traumatic childhood, I have constantly sought inner peace. But my tranquility has been disturbed throughout adult life by nightmares of being hungry, chased and shot. As my family grew, so did the nightmares, as I dreamed about my children facing the same terrors that eliminated their ancestors.

There were other unintended consequences that occurred as a result of my history and the path I chose. I was a complicated mother and parenting was a challenge. Having had neither a conventional childhood nor a conventional mother, I had to develop my own style. My mother’s ideas of exposing me to the reality of life was always foremost in my mind. Many survivors protect their children by not exposing them, but I shared my own story with Risa, Gadi, Taya and Shani as soon as they were mature enough and the timing was appropriate.

My emphasis, however, was never on the horrors I witnessed and experienced, but on their grandparents’ bravery and ingenuity during that time. They would never meet my mother, so I wanted them to know her through me. Living in Israel — a country surrounded by enemies — was very conducive to helping them face reality. It took strength and determination for us to live fearlessly. They learned to be vigilant, self-protective and self-sufficient in both school and our home. We had very few rules for the children. They could stay up as late as they wanted to, as long as they made it to school the next morning. If their grades were good and they were home for dinner, they were pretty much free to spend their days as they chose. For us, this type of parenting fostered trust and a relaxed home atmosphere.

When we returned to the US in 1977, we announced that ours would be a no-television home, as we did not want to expose the children to America’s materialism and consumerism. Our dinnertime discussions always started with recounting our days. We would invariably turn to politics and current events, but we would often end on a topic related to Judaism, Zionism and social justice. Subjects close to our hearts.

The time I spent working and sharing my story meant less time for my family. They were never anything other than supportive, however, and though I never missed a graduation or recital, Maier was the one who drove the children to most soccer practices, doctor visits and parent-teacher conferences. He loved it and especially enjoyed just playing with the children when they were young, which is something I never learned to do.

He was truly a Renaissance man. Maier not only had a PhD from Columbia in biochemical engineering and two master’s from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nuclear engineering, but he also loved music, art, literature, politics and puzzles. To him, problems were just engineering challenges and puzzles could always be solved with the proper tool, method and sense of humor. He spent countless hours teaching, sharing and theorizing with the children about everything from their latest homework assignments to the current state of the world.

Maier’s sudden passing on March 31, 2020, left an irreplaceable void for the entire family. But I draw solace from the fact that were he here today, I know he would be as proud as I am of our children and grandchildren.

Maybe our arrangement was unconventional for the time, but we made it work. Though I am biased, I believe my children have all grown into mature, responsible, kind and thoughtful adults. I consider them my four miracles, added to my own one of survival. They were born in defiance of Hitler’s plan to exterminate our people and are themselves raising my eight grandchildren to uphold their values and to become stewards of Jewish culture. I am comforted in the knowledge that they will continue telling my story and remember the victims, especially the 1.5 million murdered children whose contributions to the world have been lost forever.

When I walked out of the Gate of Death in 1945, I thought I’d never set eyes on the place again. However, I have returned to Auschwitz on five occasions, always for compelling reasons. It required considerable fortitude to step back in time, but I felt the need to share my experiences with my children. The first time, my elder son, Gadi, flew in from Israel and having him by my side was reassuring.

As I was a former prisoner, the guards allowed us special access and I was able to actually show Gadi where the stories that I have shared in this book took place. It was extremely emotional, but it was imperative to hand down both my family and our people’s history, so it could start its onward journey to lives that hadn’t even started yet.

Once I had overcome my initial hesitancy, it became easier to go back. The second time, I took a group of American Jewish teenagers and acted as their guide. Then I returned to contribute to a documentary for WGVU, a Michigan-based public television station. I brought my daughter Itaya, and we were accompanied by another survivor from Tomaszów Mazowiecki and her son. On this occasion, we visited Tomaszów and saw the ghetto apartment where I hid under the table, and the cellar where my mother and I lived after the liberation of Auschwitz.

The most memorable trip was the one on which I brought four of my grandchildren, two sets of twins, fifteen-year-old Ari and Eitan, and Noah and Aron, both eleven. In Auschwitz, we had an excellent guide who was sensitive to the children as she described the experiments that the Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, performed on twins. As I described earlier, Mengele’s laboratory was separated from my barrack block by just a barbed-wire fence. My building was burned to the ground as the Germans liquidated Birkenau to cover up their crimes. All that remained were the foundations. I worked out where I had slept and showed the twins where the brick oven once stood. I showed them where I was tattooed and where I dragged the body of the girl who died of starvation in bed beside me during the night.

A lone, symbolic cattle car sits on the railway track where the platform used to be. There, I helped my grandchildren visualize how I had stood swaying for thirty-six hours propped up by the women around me. We descended the steps to the waiting room of the gas chamber where I had stood naked for hours, waiting to die. I showed them the towering piles of hair and baby shoes so they could understand the enormity of the crimes committed there. We all said Kaddish over ashes and cried. It was hard for them, but they are now my witnesses and will tell the story of our people when my generation is gone.

Accompanied by my daughter-in-law Sarah, my last visit in January 2020, for the seventy-fifth anniversary of liberation, was genuinely uplifting. Hundreds of survivors and their families came together from all over the world. Not to lament or cry or discuss atrocities. They came to celebrate the human spirit and the lives they had lived. Some wore blue-and-white-striped concentration-camp uniforms as a badge of honor. It seemed strange to see those uniforms clean and freshly pressed. Some of us were strong enough to walk unaided. Others, pulling oxygen tanks, on crutches and in wheelchairs, entered slowly through the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei gate, demonstrating the determination that had helped them survive all those years before. The stories we shared over our meals together were of triumphs and endurance, not of past suffering.

Humanity often faces extraordinarily difficult challenges that seem to be never-ending. But I believe we are all born with natural resilience. The ability to overcome is within each and every one of us.