Mrs. Marlit Berger Wandel Holocaust Survivor speaking at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim on Tisha Bav 2025

uh a gooden fast I'm very happy that you all came to hear me I hope I deserve your attention your attendance u I'm sorry this year was delayed for almost half an hour because of uh two reasons one whatever we starting and uh I'm grateful for you coming and I hope all the best to all of Uh my name is Marlet Wandelle. I was born in Germany at the end of 1930 and I've experienced the German uh uh World War II and uh all all of its trimmings with all of its trimming. And I wrote a brief book uh factual which you can access for $15. It's a beautiful book. it will abbreviate what uh what I'm talking about and give you more details. Uh so I want to tell you that in uh the 1930s already things were not so good for Jews in in Germany. And uh by 1935 I'm 5 years old and I contracted dtheria from my brother who was treated at home with dtheria because no Jews could attend the German hospital and even though he needed a hospital the Jews were not admitted so he was treated at home and when he was a little better theia was a very dangerous disease in they did not have penicellin at the time. So it was almost deathly with high fever and uh when he was better they opened the door of his isolation room and we children five of us could um see him and I being 5 years old not seeing my brother for some time ran in and gave him a hug and that hack contracted dtheria and I was sicker than he was. I had extremely high fever and I needed hospitalization desperately. But no Jew was admitted to a hospital and no Jewish doctor could treat anyone but Jewish patients and vice versa. Aan doctor couldn't treat Jews. So there was a problem getting me admitted and our pediatrician was Jewish and he had a connections with his old friends who were not. and he used his proteexia to get me into the hospital and there were conditions to get a Jew into the hospital. We had to supply an ambulance for me because I would contaminate the Germans by being Jewish, not by be having theia but by being Jewish. And um they he supplied the ambulance. They put me in a separate room and they kept me totally isolated not because of the feria because I was a Jew. They confiscated all the toys my parents brought me and I could have no visitors. So as a 5-year-old child I felt extremely discriminated against. I felt like a paraya. I didn't know what crime I committed but I did commit a crime. I didn't know what anti-semitism meant. and I've really suffered from it. Eventually though, my life was saved and I came home uh where my family spoiled me from then on. And um we lived uh we lived a middle class from Jewish life, a nice family, very happy, five children. I was the fourth of fi five fourth young uh young youngest. Next, I had a brother three years younger than I. And um and we lived there till uh 1938. I went to a Jewish school. We had a very good Jewish school where all my s my siblings went and uh and my uh family, we had an extended family with a lot of cousins. We all went there. We had very good teachers because the teachers we were able to hire were excellent professors, very qualified because they could not teach anymore in higher places of learning. They could not teach in universities and they could not teach in uh high schools and um so they took jobs wherever they were and they took jobs in elementary school. Our school was an elementary school and the high school eventually got excellent training from all of these teachers. My brothers, two of them went to Goyisha school to German school and they suffered daily for years. Their bicycles were confiscated, their clothes were torn, they had bloody noses from all of those lovely uh classmates who beat them up as Jews. And the teachers didn't raise a hand. They made believe they didn't see anything and until they were expelled from the school as Jews and they came to our school and they didn't suffer an education and this was till the year so I'm jumping three years in uh November in October 1938 which was a month before Cristal the Gestapo came to our house late at night three Gestapo people. And my parents were out and uh we younger children were asleep and my two older brothers were doing homework uh in the living room and um they asked the babysitter, the the nanny where the parents are. They said they they're out. They'll come home very late. They said we will wait. They sat down in the living room and they waited. the Gustapo, three Gustapo bed, but waited till my parents were coming home. My parents were coming home about 11:00 at night and they see bright lights in the living room from downstairs and they know that something must be wrong because the children should be asleep already. No lights in the living room. And since they had reputation that they were picking up men for labor camps in 1938, uh my father thought they were after him and he took off. He ran he ran in hiding. My mother went upstairs facing the Gestapo not knowing what is upstairs. They said to them, "Where's your husband?" He she said he's out of town. And they told the children and take only your necessary papers. we take you to the Gestapo for examining your papers. You'll be home shortly. And that's what happened. She woke us up, dressed us in regular clothes, and we walked out of that apartment in October 1938, never to see it again, never to see my father again. And um and that was the beginning of our plight, October 38. And you know war for people here started at 44 in Hungary the war didn't start till 1944 I believe for one year. So this goes back to October 1938. We were taken to prison for the night and um in the morning the Gestapo took us and wanted to vomit us onto the Polish border. They took us onto trains and tried Poland should accept us because they said they're not German citizens. They're Polish citizens. We were actually stateless because in Germany it was very hard to get citizenship even if you were born there and my mother and father were there since they were little and um that didn't help. So here we in a train all the people from Statine that's the city where I was born mostly my family uh extended sisters and children of my mother's sisters and we uh came to different borders who didn't accept us. We eventually got through Bolshian. You might have read and Bian the Jews were admitted to Poland and our group from Statin wound up in the city called Radom in Poland. Bradom is a few hours from Warso and it uh had very very nice Polish citizens who took uh our refugee situation very much to heart and um they uh they tried to find places for for the uh children. There were at least 30 children. Most of them our cousins or friends of cousins and they didn't uh they had a Jewish orphanage. So that's where they planned on putting us. But my mother was very much a mother on hand. My mother lived till about almost 100 years old and uh she knew just what what to do. She said these are not orphans find a different solution and the radus found a solution of u uh foster children. So we became foster children. They tried to find religious homes because most of us were religious and they tried to find a home where the child was similar age so they could go to school together and um that didn't always work out but they found solutions. Now here I was placed with a family that was had no children and I was very unhappy there. Why? Because my mother had a beautiful room with an elderly couple who did not want children. And to me it was a tragedy. Here was a beautiful room with my wonderful mother. And where am I all alone? I was a very unhappy child being with lovely people who tried their best to make me happy. Uh eventually I joined my sister who was adjusted with a similar age girl and uh that didn't work out either because I was the third on the carriage, the third wheel on the carriage. So I wasn't happy and we went to school in Radob trying to learn Polish and trying to adjust. The language was totally strange to us and the only similar to German was Yiddish and we didn't really speak Yiddish at home. spoke German. My mother could communicate, but we children found it hard. And this lasted till the school year was over, which was se which was summer 1939. And then we were there. We were sent to a summer camp of federation. The 30 children or so were sent together. And there I was happy. Why? because I had my siblings with me and and my friends and my cousins and I spent a very happy summer summer of 1938. But then the end of the summer, September, the war with Germany broke out and the bombardments came and they came very near our camp and everywhere. We were not far from Warso and uh we uh the counselors went home to tend to their own famil family's needs and we were left abandoned in the summer camp because nobody claimed that there were no parents that came for us and the only person in Van because they were busy traveling to Germany trying to get their possessions in order or as much as as they [clears throat] could. And um uh my mother uh went in the summer she went to an old school board or was post high school school and she was learning a trade to support her family in in in Poland and Rad. And she did learn during the summer the trade to be a corseteria. Coreria means uh sewing girdles and and brazers which at that time could not be bought in a store precise as they doing now here. They were custom made and she learned a trade with the help of a 19year-old girl who spoke Yiddish and she translated the Polish teachers instructions into Yiddish to my mother who stipped herself from the Yiddish to understand the German and she learned the trade and with that trade she supported us during the war and afterwards also to be a very good coreteer and after so She with his friend Duska Goofinka uh tried to find the children in camp. They didn't really have the exact address and there were no transportation. The there was no train and no bus and no car, no gasoline available because of the war breaking out. So she found a horse and baggy on a farmer and she went with a horse and baggy to find a sabber camp and she eventually found in October with snow on the ground she found an camp with abandoned children over 30, the oldest being my oldest brother, the youngest being my youngest brother. And and we were starved. We were already then we were eating snow and snow to me is like mana from heaven. Believe it or not it's nourishing. Snow is very nourishing like they did the mana from heaven. We ate snow and we felt we had we had drink and we had food. We felt full. And um so she took with a horse in the baggy which only could take a certain amount of children. and the neediest not her own five children. The neediest and the sickest she took first and they made several trip backs and forth until all of the 30 children were secure back in Radom. And so we lived in Radom, which eventually became ghettoized, which means the Jewish community was uh put in a smaller place, ever smaller and smaller, and we had to move several times in different places until the luxury was one total room for family of five children, eventually four children, one went to America, and a mother. And that contained all of the lifestyle. And we were considered lucky to have one private room. But that meant that we children had to walk through the five room apartment which housed five families. And we were lucky enough to have the last room. So we walked through their rooms and we saw like on television life of family, small children. We saw them eating. We saw them fighting. We saw them loving. We saw them washing and cooking. And it was an experience. But we considered ourselves lucky to have a private room to which we could retire. But we had to work. All of us had to work in order to be able to live in the ghetto. And we needed uh food cards, food stamps with which to buy food. And that was only available for working people. And we all worked. The Jewish community had a something that was called Shopopen, which enabled the Jewish population to stay in Radam, whatever they were. And um those who are were employed were a and had housing, had a room, a bed, were able to stay, they could get vacations, they had to work, all ages, including my younger brother and me. So what did we do for being able to work? My mother was the corseteer. She was the one who spoke to the German population in German and she took the measurements and she brought them to the shop where where my sister was at the sewing machine. I had a sister two years older and she was at the sewing machine and I was cutting threads. That was a finisher. My younger brother was uh the telephone boy. In those times they didn't have cell phones. So he had a he was a telephone boy speaking German which was helpful. So he uh was told by the people who came for fitting which department they wanted and he ran to the department got the department head whether it was a tailor or shoemaker or whoever and brought them for fitting and that's how we maintained ourselves for two years in the ghetto. Uh my older brother was a photographer and uh my oldest brother was on the way to America. He had a he had a special scholarship to the Ford Foundation to for future engineers and there were conditions all around. He had to be under 16 to to arrive in America and he had to speak English. And uh all of these facilities my parents tried somehow to arrange. My father from from Europe from Germany and my mother from Poland. They never saw each other again. But they worked together on trying to get my brother out. And he he did make it. On his 16th birthday, he arrived at America on April 15th, 19 42 43 and last the last uh boat out of Europe before World War II with America and Germany. And um he was the one who eventually bro was able to he became a soldier eventually and he was able to bring his family his remaining from the Holocaust to America on a preferred quota. And the good part was that eventually in 1946 April 15th lucky day we arrived in America as a preferred family and that's another story. Now, in the meantime, we are in Europe and the ghetto is Vadom 1942 was liquidated. That meant that the the Germans figured it didn't pay for them to stay [clears throat] Vadom and they liquidated the the ghetto not to have to do extra uh expenses, war expenses. the war was going bad for them and they took all the people smaller places to concentration camp. So we were sent from camp to camp. Our first camp was a very very harsh one. In kettle cast we were transported. I can give you the itinerary more or less. Uh the first camp was my dank. Anybody heard of my danak here? Was a very very bad camp. And there we were separated, men and women. And and my two brothers were separated from us. And we three women, my mother, my sister and I stayed together from that time on throughout our stay in in the concentration camps. And we stayed about nine of them. And we could not acknowledge our relationship because one of the main things that they did was separate families of all kinds, separate friends. Even if you made them in camp, they Germans knew how to de demoralize us. Not only with no food, no clothes, hard labor and everything else. But the worst was the demoralization of spirit. You needed spirit to survive. Not just food and and beten and and all of that. My mother gave us beten from Hashem. She was inspired by Hashem all the time. Every second word was her God, God. And she really gave it to us like mother's milk. And I still have it and it sustains me till today. I'm a positive person because of my mother. And um I never could call her my mother. I called her by a first name. Her name was Pelina. We called her Pepe. And uh nobody really was allowed to know that we were related. That was a constant beyond guard uh situation. We had we went I'll mention to you a camps you won't remember. Uh in March 1944 we came to Plasau. In January 44 to Burkanau and 45 we came on the on Dout and Ravensburg Maldd. And the reason they kept shipping us from camp to camp was also twofold. also demoralization of place, not just people, place and people. And it paid for them to do that because they drove us like cattle on the country roads from camp to camp. They didn't have to spend money on on on uh trains which they didn't have. The most they had for us was maybe cattle cars and that was rarely used mostly the roads that uh that were in Poland and Germany and country roads which were like this table uh not paved and on both sides of uh the roads were ditches for rainwater to come down. So when we would go on the roads, it was with lack of shoes, lack of clothing, lack of uh food and uh and we had to go on these roads with those shoes, bad shoes, uh improvised shoes, with rags or paper or whatever was there. and and all the conditions you read in your books are more than the truth and not enough of the truth. None of the books really can describe because it's very hard to talk about it, very hard to write about it and very hard to read. So believe all those non-fiction books were true and uh the things that was happening to us and ke the first camp we had our hair short they claimed for cleanliness. Uh the hair was taken off our heads in my dick and uh where also we were separated from our brothers never to see them again. Uh my younger brother was eventually in March taken with the children and we don't know what happened to him. There was no trace. We never could trace any either his life or death. But um and that happened to millions of children. and my older brother eventually we after the war we found he was in a camp in Italy and we did reunite after the war in Switzerland and came together to America. So four people came together to America the three women three of us and my brother the middle brother uh in 19 In 1944, June 1944 in Avitzburg can now we were when we arrived, we were taken uh our clothes was uh we were put naked into what we not put, we were told to undress And we were told we going into showers and we left our clothes where we were told and we went into a room which was maybe a quarter the size of this tent and it did look like a shower. It had spigots on top and we were totally naked, all women um ready for showers to come from the spigots. But what we really were in was a crematorium which and out of the shower spigots cyclone gas was supposed to come out. But this was after a lot of people were already gassed there. What would happen was that we would drop that from the gas and then prisoners would come and then take the bodies in in carts into the ovens into the platorum in the ovens and burn them and they were dispersing the ashes on the fields. Uh and this is what would have happened to us and there were two incidences in all of Avitz history where the crematorium did not function. One of them was this our our crematorium. We were all naked like sardines standing up close to each other and ready for the water to come down and nothing came down. No water, no gas. And we had no idea it was a gas chamber because paddock would have broken out. And uh they told us to go out and get prisons. We went out, we got prison clothes. None of them fitted and life went on at in Aishvitzburg can now. So we worked in all the camps uh on different things which was coal mines, women to coal mines, salt mines, ammunition factories, road work. these roads that were on the were done by prisoners even though they were they didn't have uh uh uh asphalt they didn't had what were you building up >> it's called >> yeah they didn't have that so they they made us make roads which were usable for prisoners certainly and [clears throat] the labor was very very hard. Around the camp, labor was more desirable because in the laundry it was warm, in the kitchen it was warm and you had a chance for some food. Uh and um keeping clean the facilities was preferred to going out. But what worse than work was the appel plots, which means standing in line in the morning and in the evening. when you went out to work early in the morning, you had to line up on an appel plat on a big place and uh be counted and that could take an hour or two if they were not pleased with the count had to count again and we had to stand in lines of five not having the koas to stand up. We had to look like we healthy going to work and that was torture really more more of an effort than work itself. And that happened every morning, every night. And somehow with God's help, we survived. We didn't know what day it was. We didn't know anything. We had none of our possessions on us. No, nobody that was in a concentration camp had a picture or an address or paper or pencil, nothing. and uh thought the Germans were losing all the war. Oh, I wanted to tell you also about um when we got tattooed uh in ouritz we were tattooed in the beginning. Tattooed means we got a number on our arm and we were like kettle known by the number and uh in their uh good record keeping. So we thought that if we try to have numbers next to each other that we have a better chance of survival. So we had a lot of effort to try and stay together during that uh time that they tattooed us. Now you must imagine tattoo lines are like uh when you come to the bridge here. When you come to the bridge and the cars are line to go around the bridge. They have several stations where you pay. uh here we we try to be in in one line and we try to be next to each other and we tried not to be separated and by miraculous effort I don't know by miracle we really have consecutive three numbers and we three survived with consecutive numbers our arms and I have the numbers still on my arm and I don't think it happened in history of of of all the that related people have consecutive numbers and the it helped us stay together but it didn't help legally anything much that I know of but it it was important to us and u then came the time and Germany wasn't doing well with Russia they you know they overstayed they over reached themselves and and they ran out of everything they ran out of food of ammunition of cyclone gas and they needed to and they were afraid that the Americans and the English and the Russians were coming and they shouldn't find concentration camp facilities or people that survived or did not survive. So they tried to eliminate us how how to do it without weapons all the concentration camps. So they called it the death march which was in a rolls of five. We were marched ped like uh whipped whipped with five. We had to be in a row with uh guards of uh in our case female guards. They were very vicious more vicious than men guards with huge dogs and weapons on our sides urging us on to go and go and go. So we were running without koas five in a row and people dropped it by the wayside and they would just drop that and and uh be either overrun by the crowd or be pushed into the ditches into the water ditches assumed to be dead. Some of them may not have been dead. I don't know. Today I'm saying it. Uh but we couldn't do it anymore. We were at the end of our rope of not having been able to uh march in our non shoes and without food, without drink, without stopping and we made up to to u to drop dead literally but together. So we we fell down and we rolled into the nearest ditch and we all rolled together. And as it happened, Hashem was there. We rolled on top of an American soldier who was a a >> scout for the American army. And we were just lucky that he didn't shoot us. He had a gun. He could have shot us because out of fright, he was frightened by three bodies falling on top of him. So he called on his uh whatever and uh the Americans came and we communicated somehow and they took us to the clo the the people walked on you know they didn't know that we were alive or dead or whatever and and they took us to the nearest village and they told the farmers to take care of us to house us to feed us and they will be back for us. Of course, they never came back because they were going to establish a front and um their intentions were very good. So, we were exposed to excellent food. They were frightened the German farmers and they prepared us good food. But here again, my mother stepped in like anywhere else uh with saving. A lot of people died from overeating after the camp. Their stomachs were totally shrunk and they couldn't digest the food. So my mother literally locked us up in a room and prevented us from eating their cooked food. Not only because it wasn't kosher, of course, but because it could kill us. And she was totally right. She fed us porridge for 2 weeks to slowly adjust our stomachs to food again, which were shrunk. And uh and that saved our lives because even from chewing gum and chocolate bars from well-meaning soldiers could kill a prisoner who was starved and his stomach couldn't digest it. Uh so she knew somehow she knew that and we stayed there a little bit but we saw there was no life for us there. Nobody's coming back. So we made our way to this closest city which was Leipzik and u there we encountered American soldiers in a jeep who spoke Yiddish to my mother uh didn't speak German didn't speak English and somehow communicated and he wanted to know to write to his parents where our family in America is. So my mother knew she had a sister and and her and her address. She didn't have it written down. She knew her last name. Her name was Dickman. And she lived on Ross Street in Williamsburg. And what she remembered is that it was a street sounding like a horse. Now Ross in German is is a horse also. And um so somehow he wrote to his parents whatever this uh officer American soldier uh and they were able to trace by the name Dickman uh Rose Street in Williamsburg and that's how my aunt knew that we were alive and um communicated to my brother who was the last one to know because he was in the army and they had to communicate to him. uh and eventually the whole family knew that we survived. Now um this this soldier also told us that in Bhanvald which was a former uh men's camp a very infamous longstanding uh men's camp that they are gathering there in the Rabbi Heshel Shaka not the same young Heshel Shaka from Wu but from the Bronx Mulan park where Hela was a young Um he was a young um chaplain from YU and he and he he initiated fantastic labor. He came into Bhan Vald and when he saw the prisoners and everything he gathered his folks and they all worked diligently Jews and some non-Jews uh to try and be there for the survivors. So the first thing they tried to do was uh um uh get them together with their family and to try collect and reconstitute their addresses somehow. And that was very difficult because nobody had addresses written down on paper they didn't have. So we finally uh got to grow and uh Hashel Sha was offered a program of 300 surviving children uh going to Switzerland for vacation for rehabilitation for a certain time. So he accepted that offer from the Swiss blue cross and he said he'll come up with 300 Jewish children. Now the Jewish children you can imagine were all not there anymore. I was the youngest among the youngest survivors besides uh uh the uh rabbi Rabbi Laauo. He was the only youngest miracle in Bhanvald. There were no survivors that were his age at all. They were mostly teenagers. And uh we we got two mothers together, two surval, my mother and another mother of two Hungarian girls um and 300 children uh children teenagers. We got together and Rabbi She went on the trip with us. He expected trouble which he had. We came to the border of Switzerland and the Swiss Red Cross nurse looks at us and says, "We are the children." And uh Rabbi Shea says, "These are the children Hitler left us. There are no younger children." She said, "I won't accept them. We have an offense for children." He said, "Well, if you don't," they had a whole dialogue going on back and forth. Rabbi Shea fought for us. He said, "If you don't accept these quote unquote children, then I will go to the to the news of the world and publicized that Switzerland refused 300 of the youngest survivors to enter the country. Finally, he settled and he didn't leave us until we were accepted. So we were accepted into Switzerland on a temporary basis for rehabilitation and we were divided into three different denominations of religioity. Auda sha and they placed us in different homes where we got good education, good food and uh we were there to stay for for um a little time that Switzerland paid for it. the Jewish agency took over and they paid for it and they financed it and they had volunteers uh in Switzerland, young people like they do here um who are educating uh us uh young married couples and uh they we got good education and we have really we are really rehabilitated as much as we could but none of us could stay there per permanently. Switzerland did not accept anyone permanently. So it was we stayed there until our papers to America were ready and my brother from Italy was able to join us in Switzerland. So there were four of us going to America on the papers that my brother facilitated. So my brother in the meantime was back in the states. the war was over and he was able to get an apartment in Brooklyn, New York uh to and he made for us a beautiful apartment and when we came over in 1946 all four of us um we had a home, our first home since 1938 October. April 15th, his lucky birthday was a day we arrived in America and uh we made a very good adjustment in America uh very very nicely and um and he had in the apartment from soup to nuts everything linen for which people used to stand in line to get linen in 194546. Linen was raged in America because of the war. So linen and pots and everything the family attended to. Each one got a piece and each one got something and and we had a beautiful apartment, two bedrooms. We three girls slept in one bedroom and my brother joined us. So the two boys were in another bedroom. We had a living room and a kitchen, a bathroom. And it was and and on 1525 East 15th Street, Brooklyn, New York, next to the BMT line neck road station. So my brother told us go and do my brother told my younger brother go to work and he started to work for Le Sharel Laboratory in the dark room sleeping. Um and um and as he told us two girls, he said, "Go to high school. Register by yourself. Go." We took the subway and we went to Abraham Lincoln High School on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. And we were received as a real novelty. This was too early for any refugees to appear because people didn't come. The people on the boat who were uh preferred quotota were Jew German war brides from the soldiers which had preferred quota having married an American and there were no families or anything coming. So we were very nicely received in Abraham Lincoln High School. the principal was very cooperative and all the teachers were and all the uh all the students were they they didn't know what to do with us. We didn't speak English. I didn't speak anything English. So here was again for the rest it was a Polish language which I had to learn and now it's the American uh the English and all I can say is they were very very helpful. Now I my sister always talked about she's two years she was two years older than I. She talked about the Holocaust incessantly constantly. It was always on my mind. Uh but I never wanted to talk about the Holocaust. As a matter of fact my talking about the Holocaust going public as you say is very very recent. I would say at most 20 years in my 95 almost years of life. So I always avoided the subject and so were many of your ancestors who if you didn't hear from them was because they couldn't talk about it and they wouldn't talk about it. They didn't want to bother you. Uh number one I had two reasons for not wanting to talk. I didn't think they believed me. I didn't think they would believe me and I didn't think they really wanted to know. Honestly, I didn't think they wanted to know. And honestly, I didn't think they would believe me. So here I was a non-talker about my past. I had a number on my arm. And when the and when my classmates would ask me, uh, what number do you have on your arm? I came up with a very solving solution answer. Anybody wants to guess what I would have said, not knowing, not wanting to talk about the Holocaust, what is the number on your arm? Raise your hand if you want to answer. Did you ever hear about it? What is your guess? >> 613. >> What? >> 613. >> No, I mean, what is the number? What is 6? Oh, mitzvah, right? Very good. Very good. No, it's not the answer, but it's a very good possibility. It wasn't 630 the number. Tell me who is guessing what I would have said. Closing the subject. >> Anybody? Anybody? >> If not, I'll tell you. >> Phone number. >> What? >> Phone number. >> Telephone number. >> Phone number. Who said phone number? Did you ever hear about that before? No. >> Very good. I told them it's my telephone number and they stopped questioning me. they accepted it and all that. I heard a cute one from somebody else who told me who who said I asked the same question. He said he knew two brothers who had two different tele who had two different numbers on their arm. So they answered well they had two telephones. Okay. So uh let's see if I left out any important facts otherwise if we have time I'll go to some of the new adjustment in America. >> You want me to stop? >> No. >> Who wants me to stop? >> Who wants me to continue? >> You want to see your number? >> Okay. The long and the short of it is that I had a very good we had a very good adjustment in America. My mother went to work to on Avenue U which is walking distance literally to uh where we used to live. She went to a corset shop and she was a very good fitter on corset and salesperson and she pushed herself to learn English. She made money. She was happy. She kept our house. My job was to do the laundry in a in a veal, you know, the shopping cart to the laundromat. And in the summer of 1930, my sister went uh she made good money in a factory on a sewing machine in her summer vacation. Our first summer vacation, we were busy making money. Um she was made good money and she was able to buy herself a fur coat, a mut I believe. You know, at that time it must have been about $300 and uh she she felt like a million dollars. Now I was money hungry and I wanted to make money. So on Avenue U which is walking distance from where we lived was a bakery and I became a bakery salesperson. I wasn't 16 yet and I had to be 16. So I lied about my age and I was able to get a job six days a week which included Sunday, not Shabas and they were open seven days a week and for that I got 50 cents an hour. I came home with $30 a week, clear cash, and some bread or whatever I wanted to take in the bakery. And I was the happiest person being occupied, being uh making money and hoarding money. Hoarding money like I was hungry for food in the war. I was hungry for money. I thought money buys you freedom. Money buys you independence. Money is important. And I've been a savior ever since. And to tell you the truth, I still make money today. I make and sell jewelry and and I make money on it and I still enjoy making money. Uh my sister uh did fantastic in high school. She finished in a year and a half high school. She won a scholarship, a New York City scholarship to for college and she had visions of college and degrees and all the she was extremely bright and what happened was uh when she was still in high school. My brother answer said My brother answered an ad in the Jewish press who were a very eligible young man from Germany who was a graduate engineer. his sister put an ad in looking for color and my brother without telling anybody ends it and he wrote who my sister qualification was and he he took a trip to New York seeing several pass uh prospects and the one he liked was my sister. She was not 18 yet. She was gorgeous, developed and smart and marriage was really not on her mind. So it took some time for my brother, my mother who saw that this was a very eligible uh Hen possibly an persuasion. It took him, it took him his performance and courting her that made an impression on her and [clears throat] she finally consented and he came from Rochester, New York. He was a finished engineer who got a very good position or now on graduation from mixing equipment Rochester, New York. It would mean giving up her scholarship in New York and moving to Rochester away from her family when she just got happy and comfortable with her family. But my mother and my sister took a trip to Rochester, met his parents and they saw it was a shak from heaven and they persuaded her and she she became convinced. Make a long story short, she was very happy. She they had four children and they lived many many years. All of their children made aliyah to Israel eventually when they were ba baked totally ready and uh they joined them on retirement and both of them are nift already. [clears throat] Uh and I was very lucky. Hashem was good to me. Uh I met my husband a very romantic way and so both sisters were very lucky. Uh I was happily married for 67 years. My husband died in Manin Fountain View and uh we were both there together for a year and he managed uh with a very difficulties anyhow to uh to have a happy last year in Many where he was close to his great grandchildren and had the S to see them grow up and we had a very good last year and when he died he died like a kiss from Hashem. and he settled me there and he settled everything and uh I'm very grateful. I'm happy there now. I did a lot of things in Fountain View in the nine years that I'm there. I uh I wrote a book in uh a few years ago with the help of my daughter and my son. And I have only two children and I have a lot of nah for both of them Kohara and I have four families of my daughter living in Mansi with with their children and I have constant bash and they're here today and I'm very happy in the years that I have been at fountain I managed to do a lot of things. I um was able to give a safer to memory of my husband and uh and uh the perished once in the war. I was able to write with the help of my two children a very good book which sold a thousand copies without a store. I sell it when I talk. I talked in Jerusalem. I had an apartment in Jerusalem. My son lives in Jerusalem. So half of my life after was also in Jerusalem and I taught uh I was taught at Yadvashm how to speak to audiences like you and um I talk now to schools mainly I talk a lot to schools to a program called names not numbers anybody heard of the program names not numbers names not numbers a very good program where they teach high school and junior high school children about the Holocaust for whole semester. It's very successful. Then they take them on to the trip to you the camps and in addition I give pa sha vua classes to a women in fountain view. I was its president for many years it vice president when I first came and uh whatever I I'm very busy and happy and and glad to talk to you. I'll accept some questions. I'm selling the book for $15. 105, not 50. 15, not 50. And it's a very worthwhile book to hand down to your to your children, to your family, to not to keep in the library, but to pass on. Uh, anybody has any questions? Yes. Come. I don't hear so well. I have two hearing aids. I wanted to know what made you start telling your story. >> What made Oh, very good. The lady on is asking a very good important question. What made me tell? What made me go public? I tell you the truth. I'm telling you it was shindless book, >> shless movie. I saw a shitless movie and I was inspired for the first time that here is a story that is worthwhile telling and he it wasn't my story. I wasn't involved in Schindler's story at all. Um and he did a marvelous job of the uh of making the movie and my later years my eight years ago I read the book. I came across a book accidentally, Shindless List. I didn't realize it was from a book. I read the book and I was so impressed. The movie is exactly like the book. I was so impressed with the book that I wrote a note to the publisher because the author's address isn't there. I wrote a very nice uh note that I'm very impressed with this book. After about a month or a few months, I got back a reply from the author and among the astonishing things, the author of Shindless List. You all know anybody ever did not hear of Shindless List. Not here. It's worthwhile seeing on the on the television on the on the not have it's worthwhile seeing. It's a about the Holocaust. It's very well done. Uh the author wrote me book of back of all things that he's not Jewish which absolutely flawed me. I was sure he's Jewish. I assumed he's Jewish. He wasn't Jewish. He heard the story from a survivor from Shindless List. And that's when I felt that I have to speak. And also anti-semit anti- anti holocaust, you know, was very rampant at the time. I felt I I had they have to hear my voice and I went to Yadvashm at the time in Shalim and I was very interested and they gave courses on I for a lot of money they gave very good courses on how to address an audience. My preference was always not tourists because they have yet in Yadvashm they have tourists also. I was going for birthright. You anybody knows what birthright is? I was very interested in Birthright and I addressed hundreds of people from all over America and other countries from birthright at Yadvashm and I had the new auditorium was built and I had as many as uh 600 at a time and the new auditorium was beautifully done address different bus loads came and they for time they discontinued this service of meeting Holocaust [snorts] survivors because they couldn't afford it. It was very expensive to bring them to a bring them to Israel. I once asked one of the managers of Birthright in Israel, is it could die for you to spend so much money to have a free two weeks of touring of children who may not be interested in Jewishness? and he said to me that if he gets from each transport one or two children to come to Israel to live it's worthwhile. So it's a worthwhile it's still going on. I keep getting schnora letters from birth by all the time but that got me started and I continued wherever I am in Israel or here talking about the Holocaust. So this might be my last talk because I'm going on 95 and I asked the videographer to do a good job so that next year Mashem if you need to view this is my third year that I speak for China. So next year Mashem they could have my tape if they don't have myself. So thank you for coming and oh I will sell you the book. I have salespeople here who take $50. I'll sell them. I'll sign them. >> Have to show your number. >> Yes, I will show my my number. Come here. Ha. Ha. I have a job for you. Come here. >> First. Come first, sir. >> Yes. >> Okay. I have a pencil. Take a chair. Take a chair. >> No. Here. Listen. Take their name and number. Take their name and telephone number and money. I'll sign the book. Would you give us all a braha? >> Yes. Oh, I meant to give you a braha. On this special day, everybody on on I don't know if you can hear me. On a special day, everybody can have a I don't want to say individually anymore, but all of you should have a last fastm next year should not need to be a fast. You should have a gazund and everything that you wish for should be fulfilled. You should have gaz first of all good healthy children, healthy spouses, good lives and and you should have a positive attitude like I have to help you with Hashem's. I see in every little thing Hashem everything if the mic falls down and if doesn't break it's bo Hashem. Everything is hashem. So all of you should be well and healthy and be be have all of your wishes fulfilled your partners and everything good. Thank you for coming. >> Thank you. Next year. >> Amen. >> Show the show your numbers. >> Okay. Here's my number. The best view the best view is really in the book. It's a black and white. This picture is in Yadvashm. My brother took the picture of our my mother, my sister and I, consecutive numbers. And it's in Yadvashm. This picture was taken 1947 by my brother, the photographer. >> And that's the one here I display in color. My grandchildren put the fire behind it on the computer. >> He wants for the video. He wants to see your arm. >> Okay. >> I don't know if you could see it. >> Closer. It's the same as in the book. >> It's read this way. It's very hard to get in line. I read a book. >> It reads this way. >> And I didn't want to tell you it. People asked me if it hurts it. At the time, I didn't think that it hurt me. It was needles. Each each ladder was formed by consonant needles done by prisoners. And it probably hurt, but that was the least of my pain. So, I didn't pay that. Okay, let me sell books. I brought 20 books and I have more at home. Protecting three.