September 21, 2025 • 41 mins
Video link to this episode: https://youtu.be/IdA3uHWGEtg
In today’s video, I’m honored to share with you the remarkable story of Nelly Grussgott. This footage was originally filmed on August 12, 2020—long before I had a YouTube channel. It was part of a project by filmmaker Pearl Gluck, conducted for a documentary she was making with scholar Naomi Seidman about the Bais Yaakov girls' school movement. Naomi invited me to assist with the interview, and I was there in the room when it was recorded.
From the moment I met Nelly, I was completely taken by her. Her life story is one of immense pain and breathtaking resilience—a testimony to survival, transformation, and spirit. Just days after the interview, Nelly made Aliya—she moved to Israel—at the age of 90. We stayed in touch, and I even interviewed her again via Zoom for this channel. But this original interview, which has always felt so precious to me, was never publicly shared until now. With the blessing of Pearl and Naomi, I’ve edited it down and am releasing it here to preserve her memory and her voice for posterity.
As of today, Nelly Grussgott is 95 years old—bless her soul, may she live to 120.
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, Nelly witnessed Kristallnacht as a young child. Her early childhood was comfortable—charmed, even—growing up as an only child in a pampered, middle-class Orthodox Jewish home. Her parents were not German-born: her mother, from Czechoslovakia, moved to Berlin at 24 and became successful in the rags/textile business. Her father was Hungarian, and both were deeply religious. Due to the hostility towards Orthodox Jews in Berlin, they adapted to a modern Orthodox lifestyle.
In 1937, Nelly’s father went to the United States to secure affidavits to bring his family to safety. He succeeded—but history intervened cruelly. While her father was still away, Nelly and her mother were forced out of their home and into an overcrowded apartment with five other Jewish families. One night, Nazi soldiers raided the apartment and took the men at gunpoint. Days later, ashes were returned to their wives in the mail.
In a desperate move, Nelly’s father returned to Europe in 1938—traveling to Belgium to reunite the family. It proved to be a devastating mistake. Nelly and her mother, Czechoslovakian citizens, were able to emigrate to the U.S. at the very last moment, getting papers as I understand it in late 1939 but actually coming "in the last hour" in Frebruary 1940. But because her father was Hungarian, and the Hungarian quota was closed, he remained trapped in Europe. His letters continued for several years, growing more despondent until, in 1942, they stopped entirely.
In 1995, the Red Cross confirmed the fate the family had long feared: Nelly’s father was deported to Majdanek, then to Sobibor in March 1943, where he was murdered, along with many relatives.
Nelly’s mother eventually remarried in America, joining with a Satmar Hasid who had also survived great loss. She thrived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—especially enjoying her later years on Lee Avenue, surrounded by familiar faces and warm greetings. Nelly herself chose a different path, remaining Orthodox but not Hasidic, and went on to raise a mainstream Orthodox family.
I’m deeply grateful to finally bring this interview to light. May Nelly’s story reach far and wide—and may we never forget.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
In today’s video, I’m honored to share with you the remarkable story of Nelly Grussgott. This footage was originally filmed on August 12, 2020—long before I had a YouTube channel. It was part of a project by filmmaker Pearl Gluck, conducted for a documentary she was making with scholar Naomi Seidman about the Bais Yaakov girls' school movement. Naomi invited me to assist with the interview, and I was there in the room when it was recorded.
From the moment I met Nelly, I was completely taken by her. Her life story is one of immense pain and breathtaking resilience—a testimony to survival, transformation, and spirit. Just days after the interview, Nelly made Aliya—she moved to Israel—at the age of 90. We stayed in touch, and I even interviewed her again via Zoom for this channel. But this original interview, which has always felt so precious to me, was never publicly shared until now. With the blessing of Pearl and Naomi, I’ve edited it down and am releasing it here to preserve her memory and her voice for posterity.
As of today, Nelly Grussgott is 95 years old—bless her soul, may she live to 120.
Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1930, Nelly witnessed Kristallnacht as a young child. Her early childhood was comfortable—charmed, even—growing up as an only child in a pampered, middle-class Orthodox Jewish home. Her parents were not German-born: her mother, from Czechoslovakia, moved to Berlin at 24 and became successful in the rags/textile business. Her father was Hungarian, and both were deeply religious. Due to the hostility towards Orthodox Jews in Berlin, they adapted to a modern Orthodox lifestyle.
In 1937, Nelly’s father went to the United States to secure affidavits to bring his family to safety. He succeeded—but history intervened cruelly. While her father was still away, Nelly and her mother were forced out of their home and into an overcrowded apartment with five other Jewish families. One night, Nazi soldiers raided the apartment and took the men at gunpoint. Days later, ashes were returned to their wives in the mail.
In a desperate move, Nelly’s father returned to Europe in 1938—traveling to Belgium to reunite the family. It proved to be a devastating mistake. Nelly and her mother, Czechoslovakian citizens, were able to emigrate to the U.S. at the very last moment, getting papers as I understand it in late 1939 but actually coming "in the last hour" in Frebruary 1940. But because her father was Hungarian, and the Hungarian quota was closed, he remained trapped in Europe. His letters continued for several years, growing more despondent until, in 1942, they stopped entirely.
In 1995, the Red Cross confirmed the fate the family had long feared: Nelly’s father was deported to Majdanek, then to Sobibor in March 1943, where he was murdered, along with many relatives.
Nelly’s mother eventually remarried in America, joining with a Satmar Hasid who had also survived great loss. She thrived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—especially enjoying her later years on Lee Avenue, surrounded by familiar faces and warm greetings. Nelly herself chose a different path, remaining Orthodox but not Hasidic, and went on to raise a mainstream Orthodox family.
I’m deeply grateful to finally bring this interview to light. May Nelly’s story reach far and wide—and may we never forget.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-frieda-vizel-podcast--5824414/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We went to the Klosenbogo Rebbie. We wanted him to
be Masada Kudution. They recommended closing book the Rebbi Big Tadic.
So he gave me an interview from far away, of course,
and he wanted to know if I'm going to wear
a shadele okay, Am I going to shave my head? No?
That was so abhorrent for me. I said, I'm not
(00:22):
shaving my head. Well, he gave me a whole spiel
about how when a woman goes to Mica, if she
has her hair, it's probably not I never heard of
such these things. It was not. It can't be straight
enough for it to be cleansed sufficiently. You have to shave.
(00:43):
I said, no, I'm not shaving my head. Well, he
won't be Masada condition. That's okay. I had a different
reb Mesadic tradition.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today, I share with you Nellie Grosscott's story. This was
filmed on August twelve, twenty twenty, well before I had
a YouTube channel. The interview was conducted by the filmmaker
pro Glog for her and Noomi Seidman's documentary about the
Basiak of School movement. Gnomi asked me at the time
in twenty twenty. COVID Time put it in context to
help with the interview, and so I was there for it.
(01:15):
I instantly fell in love with Nellie. Nellie has an
amazing life story, so painful and beautiful and full of
the spirit of resilience. Days after the interview, Nellie left
the United States to make ali Yah, which is to
move to Israel at ninety years old. I stayed in
touch with Nellie. I still am in touch with her
occasionally via zoom and once I did an interview for
(01:38):
this channel. But this sit down interview, which is so precious,
was never yet cheered. So I asked Pearl Andnomi for
permission to edit down the hours of footage and publish
Nellie's testimony for posterity. Before I begin Nelly's testimony, which
is focused on her life in America, let me fill
you in on what happened the first ten years of
her life before she came to America in nineteen thirty.
(02:01):
She was born in Berlin, Germany, to immigrant parents who
came from Eastern Europe. They were Orthodox, although less Hasidic
than they were before they came to Germany. Nellie, by
her own accounts, had a charming early childhood until anti
Semitic Berlin reared its head in nineteen thirty seven. Her parents,
seeing the writing on the wall, decided they wanted to
(02:23):
get out. Her father went to America to try to
secure papers, and meanwhile she and her mother stayed behind.
What followed was nothing short of a nightmare. Nellie experienced
Christolnacht's first hand, and Nellie and her mother were forced
out of their apartment and had to live in an
apartment squeezed together with five other Jewish families. She had
(02:43):
to sleep in a crib at age nine, even though
she couldn't even stretch herself out in it. One night,
the Nazi stormed the apartment and took away the men,
and this Nellie saw it with her own eyes, and
the women were wailing and crying and begging for their
men to be returned, until a few days later the
ashes of their husbands were sent in the mail. Here's
where things got really tragically heartbreaking. Nellie's father, who had
(03:08):
gone to America's secure papers, knowing what his wife and
child were experiencing in Germany, panicked and came back to Europe.
He came to Belgium, which was at the time not occupied,
hoping to secure papers and to bring his family back
to America. Indeed, in nineteen thirty nine they got papers,
but only for Nelly and her mother because they were
(03:30):
citizens of Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovakia quota was open in
the United States, but her dad was in of Hungary
and the Hungarian quotas were closed. Nelly and her mother
went to America the last hour and tried to help
her father get a visa. From nineteen thirty nine until
nineteen forty three, they continuously pleaded with the government to
(03:54):
give her father papers. Meanwhile, he wrote increasingly desperate letters
from Europe until the letter stopped coming. In nineteen ninety five,
the Red Cross confirmed that Nellie's father had been killed
in sober Bor. In March nineteen forty three, Nellie's mother
remarried in America to a man who also lost his
(04:17):
family in the Holocaust. This man was a Sutmerhasid, and
Nellie's mother and Nellie's stepfather settled in Williamsburg, where Nellie's
mother lived to her very end of her life, enjoying
to sit on the avenue, meet and greet everyone she knew.
Nellie didn't take to such an extreme Hasidic lifestyle and
instead raised her family in a more moderate Orthodox lifestyle.
(04:40):
This is Nellie's testimony.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I was desperate. I cried every night. I missed my father.
I'm an only daughter, and he put me up on
a pedestal. He said that a daughter like mine doesn't exist.
He's still up there watching me, and I loved it
(05:03):
was so high. I remember when he left in nineteen
thirty seven. I was seven years old and I had
to go to this train station and say goodbye. I'll
never forget that. And it was a year part. And
I only saw him very briefly when he came back
because and he was depressed at different kind of per
(05:27):
He knew he made a mistake when he went. When
he came back, when Hitler see, he didn't go back
to Berlin. He went back to Belgium because Belgium was
still neutral. It wouldn't go back to Berlin because the
Nazis were doing horrendous, horrific killing people on streets. It's unbelievable.
(05:50):
We weren't even allowed to Jews, forbidden to sit on
park benches and or go to the movies. We were
severely irrational. When I came out from school, the Nazi
hooligans were waiting to stew thrones at the stones at
us quit choose with It was awful when I came
in nineteen forty. It wasn't that horrible yet you can
(06:14):
imagine we came out of a fire unscathed. Actually, it's
for such a miracle. A year after Oh my gosh,
anyone that was left behind, but I had to say
goodbye to friends and family or were killed everyone. They
(06:34):
took the men first, you know, so that the women
after this were helpless. We thought the women would be
saved or something now everyone with Therefore, the grace of God,
I would have been among them. I don't know. We
were evicted from our apartment. We had a lovely apartment.
(06:58):
My parents had had already a successful business, and we
lived in a Jewish neighborhood. We were religious. My mother
was very Orthodox, Yes, but you couldn't. My mother couldn't
wear a shakele, not in Germany because of the anti Semitism.
(07:18):
My mother was so religious that she did want to
wear a shadle when she was first married. But she
was in business. So one of the customers says, what
do you need that rag on your head, for the
shackles were not as glamorous then as now, and pulled
it off her head here. Yeah, and from then on
she realized that she couldn't and then living in Berlin
(07:40):
for seventeen. My mother came from a Hasidic background, very Czechoslovakia.
You had to be clean shaven. Yeah. My father when
he was young, he had long you know, pay us
as a young man. Yeah, and you could not be
you could not show that jo hasid in Germany and
eventually my mother and my parents both stayed always very
(08:10):
strictly Orthodox, strictly but not Hasidic Madern. They did enjoy
going to the movies and they went to My father
loved the museums and taking me places. And I didn't
know anything about Harasidic life. I mean I didn't, I know,
(08:30):
I thought, and in my mind I was very I
felt I was very from. I liked being from. You know.
My mother was such a wonderful lady. She wouldn't take
any help, any money from the joint and my uncles
they did any money. They had money she sent to
(08:52):
my father in Europe and he never got it. I've
got letters to show you. I can show you a lot.
Why don't you write to me. I don't get anything
from you. It's not like you. And I'm suffering greatly
not hearing from you. An I can read it to you.
She lived in Washington more than she lived on the
(09:12):
Lower East Side. I had to stay with my friends
because she was constantly going to having meetings with Congress people,
Congress senators, and they all promised her. And then they said, come,
I have letters that they sent to her. Come back
in six months, come back. And then finally they said, congratulations,
(09:34):
we approved, and already he had been killed a bit.
It was too late. It's crazy. I was ten years old,
eleven years old. All I know is all I remember
is she went to Washington. My mother and I were
very very close. That's all we happened. I had only
(09:55):
my mother and I that's all we had. When I
came to America. I went to public school, and I
think I was the only religious girl. It was ninety
percent Jewish public school on the Lower east Side. Yeah,
there were people Jewish people who had come in the twenties.
I said they were immigrants in the twenties. It was
(10:18):
a poor neighborhood. It was a fairly good public school.
I even went to camp, my mother said, which was
a good experience for me. I went to camp and
it was Kosher strictly, but none of the girls were religious.
No one was religious, and I felt very good about
(10:38):
being the religious I really were. It was so I
had two friends who were not at all religious, not
chaima Shavist, no way. They followed me the basiarch of that.
It's very interesting. When I went to Junior High, and
(11:00):
I think some of the students in my class were
mafia kids. They were that tough. The teacher used to
be afraid of them that I was afraid to go
to school. When I went to Junior High. I went
and I was zoned in into a different neighborhood. You know,
(11:22):
I lived. We lived under the bridge. This was a
cross on the other side. I lived on the Lancey
Street two forty two Delancey Street, between pitt Willett and Sheriff. Yeah. Yeah,
in one of those uh how do you call it,
(11:44):
these these frame houses on the third floor. I don't
remember ever taking a bath, but no, we couldn't because
my mother heated. She was heating at the kettle, you know,
in a kettle of the water and by the time
and it was cold right by the time she poured
(12:06):
in the water enough the water was cold. When we
came to America, my mother became a peddler. She peddled
the dry goods. She lived practically in the subway. She
went to the bronx and she went to factories where
when they were eating lunch at the time, and she'd
go to well, everyone, would you like to buy things?
(12:28):
You know? Then she bought some merchant. Someone lent her
some money and she bought some merchandise. And whenever I didn't, well,
we couldn't afford the rent. And that's why we had
to live in a cold water flat in a tournament.
My aim was to get a commercial diploma. I wanted
(12:52):
a commercial diploma. I needed to learn typing and shorthand.
I'm going to be a secretary. And sure enough, there
was a teacher that came in and taught us greg shorthand.
I still remember some of the symbols. I took to
that very well, but the typewriters didn't come. And I said,
(13:12):
without learning how to type, I will not be able
to be a secretary. You had to be able to type. Well,
a benefactor came into the school, yes, and offered a
lot of money, and Rabbi Kaplan was so realieved, both
(13:33):
Rabbi and Rebbit this is like from gods and all
this money, he wouldn't have to go travel and make
appeals anymore and pay up the mortgage. They were interested
in the school. Slowly, but surely. We had a lady,
I don't know who she was coming into the school
(13:54):
and she's going to teach us how to be ladies.
So she got us, well, white blouse and navy blue
skirts uniform. We're basic. So that was that was very nice.
But then eventually she came in and taught us a
(14:15):
little out of doing makeup. So Repits and Captain they
were willing to say no, we don't want your money
and back again they were in the poorhouse. But she said,
this is not what Basijakov is all about, to teach
the girls how to make up or put our lipstick
(14:37):
or walk properly. It was very short. That was a
very short lived time anyway, but I remember it so
well because we enjoyed she came in and showed us
all these what and it could still be from you know,
right A lot of these girls were out of town girls,
and they were not necessarily girls. They were you know,
(15:02):
they came from all walks of life. I remember them
very well. It was a very mixed group. We were
all very mixed group in those days. I didn't even
talk about the fact that I'm a refugee or that
I was.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It just.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Didn't. I guess, we didn't talk about our horrible experiences
in building I was. Once I graduated and I got
married at eighteen, So I guess I lost touch with
most of the girls except my two friends that I
brought in and another Sarah Pinsky, she passed away. You
(15:44):
know about her, Sarah Pinsky from me Shinberg. I still
stayed in touch with them, but the others somehow, that's
what happens. As life goes on. You may contact me.
It was contact, and that's how it is. My husband
was the self survivor of fifty in his family, and
(16:07):
he came after the war. We met after the war,
and that's who was. That's how I started my family,
just my mother and my That's what it was. I
was an only child always with lots of aunts and uncles. Anyway,
(16:27):
so well, God I got married, I had four children,
My four children have children, and now my children have
my grandchildren have children, and I have I'm so blessed.
I can't believe. I would never have imagined. I can't
imagine not being religious. I am strictly shy. My shapist
(16:51):
and all my family is, but not Hasidic and not SAtma,
not clothes and book and not anything else. And we
went to the closing boog a rebbie. We wanted him
to be Missidic condition you know what, yes, because I
think some of they recommended closing book the Rebbi big Tadic.
(17:16):
So he gave me an interview from far away, of course,
and he wanted to know if I'm going to sho
I'm going to wear a shadele okay, Am I going
to shave my head? No? That was so abhorrent for me.
I said I wouldn't. I'm not shaving my head. Well,
he gave me a whole spiel about how when a
(17:40):
woman goes to Mica, if she has her hair, it's
probably not. I never heard of si these things.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It was not.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's not. It can't be straight enough for it to
be cleansed sufficiently. You have to shave what kinds of
okay reasons why I should shave my head. I said, no,
I'm not shaving my head. Well, he won't be Masada kradition,
(18:11):
that's okay. I had a different reb Messada tradition. I
wasn't much of a student in Hebrew because I didn't
have the background. The seminary was already existing, and so
I was very much behind. Only when Radbertson Kaplan came
(18:33):
I enjoyed. I didn't have the background. I just went
to Talmatara and there were some other old time girls.
This was not the high school. This was just the
cemetery for the cemetery, the seminar for learning. I did
not have a good education. I would say, not elementary
(18:53):
or high school. The teachers came from They were public
school teachers, and they came tired after they had a
full day in public school. Four o'clock, yeah, and that's
when we had English. Yeah. So in the morning we
had Hebrew morning, and then there was a long, poor
(19:15):
lunch hour. And what I did, you wouldn't believe it.
I took there if we had a trolley. I don't
know if you remember trolley cars going from Williamsburg to
the Lower east Side. I went from I went back
to the Lower east Side to colin herbaut Ivashel. I
am a charity organization. I stuffed envelopes for fifty cents
(19:41):
an hour, and for that hour I made fifty It
was piecework. You had to work very fast. Stuffed the
envelopes and my friend and then we went back to
school and we made it entire. When I went to Basiakov,
we did lo to Dovn and idvened with Caverna. I
(20:04):
really enjoyed darvening. It was important to me. Yeah, I
thought it was, you know, with all the problems that
we had, I darven't so my mother got married. He
was very, very extreme. I didn't know such a thing exists.
(20:27):
I thought I was a From girl, very from But
he didn't approve of me. He didn't approve. The thing
is they had known each other from Europe before the war.
They came from the same town and he lost a
fat and he was very embedded because he lost a family,
(20:48):
and he already had a grandchild as well, four children
or five, a wife and flurt. He had come to
America in nineteen the eight because of poverty, but it
did not bring his family to America because this is
a triphon a medina. He didn't want them exposed to
(21:11):
this country, and he was just coming in to make money.
He didn't and then when it was too late. It
was very difficult to have a stepfather when you're trying
to compare him to your own father. Do you know
what hurt me the most? That was the worst, the
(21:32):
worst ever. When she could before she before the hooper,
before they got married. Of course I wasn't there. She
had long blonde hair. She hadn't been covering her hair
in Germany. She couldn't because of the anti Semitism. She
had beautiful hair. She shaved it. She shaved it. And
(21:55):
my mother was not vain, she had no vanity in
her at all. But it hurt me. I couldn't take it.
I just couldn't take it. She looked like a different
It was awful. From then on, it was me, you know,
I took a dislike exactly, you know, right away. It
just didn't start off well. For that reason, she was
(22:19):
okay with it because my mother had come from a
Hasidic background, and I think she was happy to embrace
Hasidism again because that's how she grew up. But in Europe,
the Hassi them were different. They were happy. She said,
she come from a very eight children. They were and
they were happy and always laughing. There wasn't a serious moment,
(22:43):
she said. She always reminisced about her happy childhood, except
she had to go to Germany because in Berlin as
a young woman, because the private because they were poverty streaking.
My mother I didn't know she was going to get married.
My mother had to approach me. She didn't know how
(23:04):
to how to tell me, so she was very wise.
She said to me, Nellie, when you get married, can
I come live with you? And in my heart I felt,
of course, you come live with me, But I said,
depends what my husband will want. I don't know. And
(23:26):
that was the right answer because she said, you will
get married and I'll be all alone and now I
have a chance to be to be have a life also,
and she had stiffid and do you know what, I answered, Mommy,
(23:46):
are we going to have steam now? Because I know
we're not going to stay in this apartment in the slums.
I knew that she get married, we're going to have
to move because it was only one bedroom, so he
was the only nephew that my stepfather had, and not
(24:07):
even a blood nephew, a nephew through marriage. But my
husband was a unique tie. He was a wonder. He
had such a sense of humor. Even though he lost
the Sell family, he just went on with life. He
was just to be much to be admired anyway, I
thought when he so he was a nephew, and he
(24:30):
came for two weeks with a good convention. He and
I know a cousin is coming. So when he walked in,
I thought, I said, he's a character. I didn't. I mean,
(24:51):
I was only seventeen. I was just seventeen. So but
I got to know him because I really got to
know him because he stayed and my aunt and uncle
in the meantime, they were survivors and they had come
to America and live on the next floor on the
(25:13):
third floor, so I kind of moved in with them
until because he stayed and this was the Railroad apartment,
couldn't give him a separate room, and I was happy
to be with them up upstairs. So we had when
I never would have thought that I would wind up
(25:34):
with him. I was so happy when he proposed we
went out not on a date, very informally maybe when
he was here about two or three weeks, and he
didn't understand English equit on very fast. He was very,
very smart, very bright. What happened is we went to
(25:56):
the movies. Yeah, and we saw the best years of
our lives. I don't know if you heard of that move.
I was fascinated. I loved this movie. And I didn't
think of him as a date, you know, as a
cousin with me. And he didn't understand English, and he
was squirming and all that, and I was annoyed. He
(26:17):
bothered me. I can't forget that movie. And he didn't
understand the word, so he felt rejected. And he never
asked me out again. And he didn't have to because
he lived in the house. We got to know each other,
didn't have to be you know, to know each other well.
(26:41):
He know my faults very much. I wasn't very much
domesticated it. I wasn't much of a ballabuster then I
think I was. He was here two weeks in the
country when he came to my grad I just happened
to be graduating in nineteen forty, so he came and
(27:02):
he was he knew to write up to send me
a card. I have it upstairs. I can see when
I graduated elementary school. I have a picture here. We
wore white dress, my friend and I. We wore white,
white dresses and white bows in our hair. I was
(27:22):
born and raised in Berlin, Germany. I wanted to go
back to my happy years, and that's why I went
back and I found I found my street. We came
with my son, and my son is named after my father.
And I was This was two thousand and one. How
(27:43):
old was I sixty one? When I went BA after
sixty years. I went back to the house where I
lived and was evacuated. We went back to the house
where I had to stay with four families hidden in
the ghetto. Their experienced Nazis with guns coming into the house.
(28:07):
Can't forget that. And then I went. I went back
to that three times. I made him. I mean, we
were there, they were white, This was an invitation. I
didn't go on my own. They paid for everything. Well
if they claimed they were not, they this was another
generation and they were not part of the Nazis socialist thing.
(28:31):
And they're horrified at what and they're ashamed, and they're
not going to say this, but they something genuine about
the remorse. They they couldn't do enough for us. They
whined and dined. We went back to my to where
I was living, to where I was raised as a child,
(28:56):
very happy. I went back to school where I went
to the first grade, second grade a little bit, and
then I went back to the park where I played,
and I remembered I couldn't play there anymore because it
said Jews forbidden. Said you see no more, there's no
sign anymore, and I'm sitting on the benches. I was
(29:17):
hopping up and down on the benches, see but you know.
And we went to the playground, and across the street
from the playground, my father in nineteen thirty seven was
walking by with you know, a bouptist. He was walking
by with a friend, and the friend snapped a picture
(29:38):
of me and my father, the only picture I have
of me and my father, that's all I have. And
I found the spot and I took her time and
take the picture, me and my son. I taught second grade,
and I did it as a substitute teacher because when
(30:00):
I graduated, there were no appointments made, too many teachers.
Finally I was sobbing, and it just happened. It was
like Pasha. Accidentally, I was called in for special ad teaching.
This was around maybe end of September or October. The
(30:22):
school year had already begun, and and the teacher who
I was sobbing for either she left or quit and
they asked me to complete. So this was like a
regular assignment. Asked me to complete the term. So I did,
and those again I was a pioneer in special education
(30:45):
because those at that time, those jobs were available. So
I kind of fell into it. I didn't choose it.
I fell into it. But it worked out good for me.
It worked out. It was rewarding, it really was. I
got a while I have the kids, and while I
(31:09):
was in college, became a job opportunity as a para professional.
It was two fifty an hour and that was a
very good showy at the time, and I took the job.
So I had to lend them out the college years.
That's why I couldn't because I wanted to make money
(31:32):
in between. And then I happened to accidentally meet an
acquaintance in college. Oh we didn't see you in a
long time. How are you doing? So I was telling
how I'm going for a tech. You know, I'd like
to be a teacher at that normal secretarial. I never
did become a secretary. I am going for education. So
(31:53):
and what are you doing? I said, meantime, I'm a
para professional. She said, so I'm doing it very slow.
So she said, aren't you being penny wise and pound foolish?
Why why are you a para professional? Finish up at
your college and then you'll make some You'll make four
times as much. What are you dragging out the time?
(32:16):
And I thought about this and I quit the following week.
I told them I'm no longer para with it. I'm
not longer teaching. It wasn't a para professional. They called
it educational assistant. They change labels all the time. I'll
tell you a little story also that years later, after
(32:37):
I had one little girl. She must have been ten
years older, and gave me a lot of trouble. This
really so, But she was smart and I really liked her.
So here she was in my class for usually there
in my class for a while. So I go to
(32:59):
the years later, I go to the bank. It's ten
years No, maybe it's sixteen years later. So I got
to the teller, I wouldn't have known who she is. Hi,
missus Chris Scott, I said, oh, you know me and
not I wouldn't. I don't remember you at all. But
(33:20):
tell me your name, Sha Tisha. You are Shatisha. I
couldn't believe. See Shatisha, you were the heart and you
were telling. And she said, Missus Chriscott, you made a difference.
So that was so hard with me. She said the
way she said it, and she was so sweet and everything.
(33:44):
And I met some of my students and lowmans. They
you know, they were labeled special and but they had
the ability to go further than that. They I went
to an affair and the women were in a separate
room and it was above it's something and the men
next we could hardly hear them because they were making speeches.
(34:09):
So what were the women supposed to do? The women
were talking to each other, and you know what the
men shouted at the women vibazard still you know, it's
like women shut up. They didn't even let us have
a conversation like we were but condescending, that's the word.
(34:32):
That's how I really felt. And I went. I used
to go to weddings and I saw what they served,
the men salmon and fish, but the women got these
little or dieuvs, these little I don't know, these catered
(34:54):
whatever they were it was, but not fish. And when
the waiter came around, and sometimes I was very forceful,
I said I want what the men have, and they offered,
and they and they gave me the fish. And some
women thought that was very nervy of me. I was
a new girl, and I was I was not one.
(35:20):
I came in with my friend, and my friend she
became popular right away, but I was not that that way,
and I kept to myself and I like to make
one or two friends. I didn't have to be necessarily
in a group or be the center of attraction. She
(35:42):
goes over to people and gets very friendly, and I'm
a little bit not introverted, but I think amiable. That's it.
And besides that, I was overweight as well, Yes I was,
I was telling Freda because I wasn't. In Germany, I
(36:04):
wasn't overweight. But when I came to America, so my
mother couldn't. She only cooked once a week. She didn't
have time. She had to go and peddle. Did she
ever of a woman pedaler. You know, you hear men peddling,
but my mother was very unique. She peddled. What did
I do? I ate a lot of sandwiches, rolls. I
(36:24):
must have had. You asked me what I had for
breakfast this morning? Oatmealer. Then I must have had about
three sandwiches in the morning, three for lunch. Yeah. Oh.
And they had a bakery downstairs where we lived. And
my mother said, whatever, tell the bakery guy give my
(36:46):
give my daughter on credit. Whatever she wants, let her
have it. I will pay you. And then there was
a delicatessen a block away, and she told them the
same thing. And I loved cake, and and I took advantage.
When I was sixteen, I felt very out of you know,
(37:07):
not like slim, like the ivy. I think that was
I was the only fat girl in the class. So
when you're teenager, you become motivated. So I didn't eat.
I start eating a lot of vegetables. And then by
(37:27):
that by that time, my mother was cooking. But I
didn't eat what she was cooking either, because she used
a lot of she fried, did a lot of frying.
She fried. I went to collect money for Israel in
the subways with my friend Miriam Halbashdam. After the war,
(37:47):
we used to go into the subways and ask everyone
to contribute to help grow trees for Israel. That was
an adventure. I lost all my shyness. I don't believe
I could do it. I just went into a crowd
of people. Attention, everybody, please help the people in Israel.
(38:07):
If it was because we felt, can't describe the feeling,
but I knew it was a homeland for the Jews,
even people were striving. But I know the Hasidic people
were against it because you go there after Masher comes. Yes, well,
half my family is living in Israel, and yes, it
(38:32):
was hard for me to make this decision. I'm living
in this house for so many years, and I have
my daughter, and my oldest daughter is living five blocks away,
so she and I are very good friends. It's going
to be very hard for me to be away from her.
I'm hoping when this COVID is over COVID nineteen minutes
(38:57):
that she will come to visit right away, which she
assures me she will. But and I'm so used to
the house, it's very hard to do this change. It
took a lot of convincing for my daughter in Israel
to make Aria. It took a while for me to side,
but I felt she was I have a very loving
(39:18):
family over there. She arranged a house for me. It's unbelievable,
three doors, three houses away. So and she said, well,
we don't know what will be. But in my age,
she was worried about me here. She wants me to
be safe, especially a block away from here. They had
(39:43):
this scandal. It was written up in the post. They
had a lot of deady bodies piled up in a
funeral that took a black away from my house when
she heard that. Can you imagine. Well, anyway, my husband,
if he would have lived, we would have settled in
Israel a long time ago. He wanted to. But he
(40:05):
got ill. He had a stroke, and that's another story.
You know. That was a hard time in my life
too when he Yeah, he was truly my love. I
miss him very He was a very unique type of man,
he really was. I guess all of us are unique,
every one of us, isn't that so? But he was
(40:27):
unique over other people. He had. He made me laugh.
He had such a sense of humor, jokes one after
the other. Just and when we talk about him, we
always remind ourselves. We reminisced, Oh Daddy said this, and
he said that, and we're laughing when we were there.
(40:47):
I'm visiting Israel a lot, twice a year sometimes, especially
when I was teaching. I always came during past of
vacation and Christmas Hanuka vacation. Chris Public School called it
Christmas vacation. Well, anyway, so my husband bought a plot
for us to be so I have a plot right
(41:10):
next to him in Hiram and Uchaut. You know that's
and and I will be buried there, so he would.
When he passed away, suddenly we took him to bury
in Israel. So he didn't live there, but in his
he's there now. Yeah,
We went to the Klosenbogo Rebbie. We wanted him to
be Masada Kudution. They recommended closing book the Rebbi Big Tadic.
So he gave me an interview from far away, of course,
and he wanted to know if I'm going to wear
a shadele okay, Am I going to shave my head? No?
That was so abhorrent for me. I said, I'm not
(00:22):
shaving my head. Well, he gave me a whole spiel
about how when a woman goes to Mica, if she
has her hair, it's probably not I never heard of
such these things. It was not. It can't be straight
enough for it to be cleansed sufficiently. You have to shave.
(00:43):
I said, no, I'm not shaving my head. Well, he
won't be Masada condition. That's okay. I had a different
reb Mesadic tradition.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today, I share with you Nellie Grosscott's story. This was
filmed on August twelve, twenty twenty, well before I had
a YouTube channel. The interview was conducted by the filmmaker
pro Glog for her and Noomi Seidman's documentary about the
Basiak of School movement. Gnomi asked me at the time
in twenty twenty. COVID Time put it in context to
help with the interview, and so I was there for it.
(01:15):
I instantly fell in love with Nellie. Nellie has an
amazing life story, so painful and beautiful and full of
the spirit of resilience. Days after the interview, Nellie left
the United States to make ali Yah, which is to
move to Israel at ninety years old. I stayed in
touch with Nellie. I still am in touch with her
occasionally via zoom and once I did an interview for
(01:38):
this channel. But this sit down interview, which is so precious,
was never yet cheered. So I asked Pearl Andnomi for
permission to edit down the hours of footage and publish
Nellie's testimony for posterity. Before I begin Nelly's testimony, which
is focused on her life in America, let me fill
you in on what happened the first ten years of
her life before she came to America in nineteen thirty.
(02:01):
She was born in Berlin, Germany, to immigrant parents who
came from Eastern Europe. They were Orthodox, although less Hasidic
than they were before they came to Germany. Nellie, by
her own accounts, had a charming early childhood until anti
Semitic Berlin reared its head in nineteen thirty seven. Her parents,
seeing the writing on the wall, decided they wanted to
(02:23):
get out. Her father went to America to try to
secure papers, and meanwhile she and her mother stayed behind.
What followed was nothing short of a nightmare. Nellie experienced
Christolnacht's first hand, and Nellie and her mother were forced
out of their apartment and had to live in an
apartment squeezed together with five other Jewish families. She had
(02:43):
to sleep in a crib at age nine, even though
she couldn't even stretch herself out in it. One night,
the Nazi stormed the apartment and took away the men,
and this Nellie saw it with her own eyes, and
the women were wailing and crying and begging for their
men to be returned, until a few days later the
ashes of their husbands were sent in the mail. Here's
where things got really tragically heartbreaking. Nellie's father, who had
(03:08):
gone to America's secure papers, knowing what his wife and
child were experiencing in Germany, panicked and came back to Europe.
He came to Belgium, which was at the time not occupied,
hoping to secure papers and to bring his family back
to America. Indeed, in nineteen thirty nine they got papers,
but only for Nelly and her mother because they were
(03:30):
citizens of Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovakia quota was open in
the United States, but her dad was in of Hungary
and the Hungarian quotas were closed. Nelly and her mother
went to America the last hour and tried to help
her father get a visa. From nineteen thirty nine until
nineteen forty three, they continuously pleaded with the government to
(03:54):
give her father papers. Meanwhile, he wrote increasingly desperate letters
from Europe until the letter stopped coming. In nineteen ninety five,
the Red Cross confirmed that Nellie's father had been killed
in sober Bor. In March nineteen forty three, Nellie's mother
remarried in America to a man who also lost his
(04:17):
family in the Holocaust. This man was a Sutmerhasid, and
Nellie's mother and Nellie's stepfather settled in Williamsburg, where Nellie's
mother lived to her very end of her life, enjoying
to sit on the avenue, meet and greet everyone she knew.
Nellie didn't take to such an extreme Hasidic lifestyle and
instead raised her family in a more moderate Orthodox lifestyle.
(04:40):
This is Nellie's testimony.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I was desperate. I cried every night. I missed my father.
I'm an only daughter, and he put me up on
a pedestal. He said that a daughter like mine doesn't exist.
He's still up there watching me, and I loved it
(05:03):
was so high. I remember when he left in nineteen
thirty seven. I was seven years old and I had
to go to this train station and say goodbye. I'll
never forget that. And it was a year part. And
I only saw him very briefly when he came back
because and he was depressed at different kind of per
(05:27):
He knew he made a mistake when he went. When
he came back, when Hitler see, he didn't go back
to Berlin. He went back to Belgium because Belgium was
still neutral. It wouldn't go back to Berlin because the
Nazis were doing horrendous, horrific killing people on streets. It's unbelievable.
(05:50):
We weren't even allowed to Jews, forbidden to sit on
park benches and or go to the movies. We were
severely irrational. When I came out from school, the Nazi
hooligans were waiting to stew thrones at the stones at
us quit choose with It was awful when I came
in nineteen forty. It wasn't that horrible yet you can
(06:14):
imagine we came out of a fire unscathed. Actually, it's
for such a miracle. A year after Oh my gosh,
anyone that was left behind, but I had to say
goodbye to friends and family or were killed everyone. They
(06:34):
took the men first, you know, so that the women
after this were helpless. We thought the women would be
saved or something now everyone with Therefore, the grace of God,
I would have been among them. I don't know. We
were evicted from our apartment. We had a lovely apartment.
(06:58):
My parents had had already a successful business, and we
lived in a Jewish neighborhood. We were religious. My mother
was very Orthodox, Yes, but you couldn't. My mother couldn't
wear a shakele, not in Germany because of the anti Semitism.
(07:18):
My mother was so religious that she did want to
wear a shadle when she was first married. But she
was in business. So one of the customers says, what
do you need that rag on your head, for the
shackles were not as glamorous then as now, and pulled
it off her head here. Yeah, and from then on
she realized that she couldn't and then living in Berlin
(07:40):
for seventeen. My mother came from a Hasidic background, very Czechoslovakia.
You had to be clean shaven. Yeah. My father when
he was young, he had long you know, pay us
as a young man. Yeah, and you could not be
you could not show that jo hasid in Germany and
eventually my mother and my parents both stayed always very
(08:10):
strictly Orthodox, strictly but not Hasidic Madern. They did enjoy
going to the movies and they went to My father
loved the museums and taking me places. And I didn't
know anything about Harasidic life. I mean I didn't, I know,
(08:30):
I thought, and in my mind I was very I
felt I was very from. I liked being from. You know.
My mother was such a wonderful lady. She wouldn't take
any help, any money from the joint and my uncles
they did any money. They had money she sent to
(08:52):
my father in Europe and he never got it. I've
got letters to show you. I can show you a lot.
Why don't you write to me. I don't get anything
from you. It's not like you. And I'm suffering greatly
not hearing from you. An I can read it to you.
She lived in Washington more than she lived on the
(09:12):
Lower East Side. I had to stay with my friends
because she was constantly going to having meetings with Congress people,
Congress senators, and they all promised her. And then they said, come,
I have letters that they sent to her. Come back
in six months, come back. And then finally they said, congratulations,
(09:34):
we approved, and already he had been killed a bit.
It was too late. It's crazy. I was ten years old,
eleven years old. All I know is all I remember
is she went to Washington. My mother and I were
very very close. That's all we happened. I had only
(09:55):
my mother and I that's all we had. When I
came to America. I went to public school, and I
think I was the only religious girl. It was ninety
percent Jewish public school on the Lower east Side. Yeah,
there were people Jewish people who had come in the twenties.
I said they were immigrants in the twenties. It was
(10:18):
a poor neighborhood. It was a fairly good public school.
I even went to camp, my mother said, which was
a good experience for me. I went to camp and
it was Kosher strictly, but none of the girls were religious.
No one was religious, and I felt very good about
(10:38):
being the religious I really were. It was so I
had two friends who were not at all religious, not
chaima Shavist, no way. They followed me the basiarch of that.
It's very interesting. When I went to Junior High, and
(11:00):
I think some of the students in my class were
mafia kids. They were that tough. The teacher used to
be afraid of them that I was afraid to go
to school. When I went to Junior High. I went
and I was zoned in into a different neighborhood. You know,
(11:22):
I lived. We lived under the bridge. This was a
cross on the other side. I lived on the Lancey
Street two forty two Delancey Street, between pitt Willett and Sheriff. Yeah. Yeah,
in one of those uh how do you call it,
(11:44):
these these frame houses on the third floor. I don't
remember ever taking a bath, but no, we couldn't because
my mother heated. She was heating at the kettle, you know,
in a kettle of the water and by the time
and it was cold right by the time she poured
(12:06):
in the water enough the water was cold. When we
came to America, my mother became a peddler. She peddled
the dry goods. She lived practically in the subway. She
went to the bronx and she went to factories where
when they were eating lunch at the time, and she'd
go to well, everyone, would you like to buy things?
(12:28):
You know? Then she bought some merchant. Someone lent her
some money and she bought some merchandise. And whenever I didn't, well,
we couldn't afford the rent. And that's why we had
to live in a cold water flat in a tournament.
My aim was to get a commercial diploma. I wanted
(12:52):
a commercial diploma. I needed to learn typing and shorthand.
I'm going to be a secretary. And sure enough, there
was a teacher that came in and taught us greg shorthand.
I still remember some of the symbols. I took to
that very well, but the typewriters didn't come. And I said,
(13:12):
without learning how to type, I will not be able
to be a secretary. You had to be able to type. Well,
a benefactor came into the school, yes, and offered a
lot of money, and Rabbi Kaplan was so realieved, both
(13:33):
Rabbi and Rebbit this is like from gods and all
this money, he wouldn't have to go travel and make
appeals anymore and pay up the mortgage. They were interested
in the school. Slowly, but surely. We had a lady,
I don't know who she was coming into the school
(13:54):
and she's going to teach us how to be ladies.
So she got us, well, white blouse and navy blue
skirts uniform. We're basic. So that was that was very nice.
But then eventually she came in and taught us a
(14:15):
little out of doing makeup. So Repits and Captain they
were willing to say no, we don't want your money
and back again they were in the poorhouse. But she said,
this is not what Basijakov is all about, to teach
the girls how to make up or put our lipstick
(14:37):
or walk properly. It was very short. That was a
very short lived time anyway, but I remember it so
well because we enjoyed she came in and showed us
all these what and it could still be from you know,
right A lot of these girls were out of town girls,
and they were not necessarily girls. They were you know,
(15:02):
they came from all walks of life. I remember them
very well. It was a very mixed group. We were
all very mixed group in those days. I didn't even
talk about the fact that I'm a refugee or that
I was.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
It just.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Didn't. I guess, we didn't talk about our horrible experiences
in building I was. Once I graduated and I got
married at eighteen, So I guess I lost touch with
most of the girls except my two friends that I
brought in and another Sarah Pinsky, she passed away. You
(15:44):
know about her, Sarah Pinsky from me Shinberg. I still
stayed in touch with them, but the others somehow, that's
what happens. As life goes on. You may contact me.
It was contact, and that's how it is. My husband
was the self survivor of fifty in his family, and
(16:07):
he came after the war. We met after the war,
and that's who was. That's how I started my family,
just my mother and my That's what it was. I
was an only child always with lots of aunts and uncles. Anyway,
(16:27):
so well, God I got married, I had four children,
My four children have children, and now my children have
my grandchildren have children, and I have I'm so blessed.
I can't believe. I would never have imagined. I can't
imagine not being religious. I am strictly shy. My shapist
(16:51):
and all my family is, but not Hasidic and not SAtma,
not clothes and book and not anything else. And we
went to the closing boog a rebbie. We wanted him
to be Missidic condition you know what, yes, because I
think some of they recommended closing book the Rebbi big Tadic.
(17:16):
So he gave me an interview from far away, of course,
and he wanted to know if I'm going to sho
I'm going to wear a shadele okay, Am I going
to shave my head? No? That was so abhorrent for me.
I said I wouldn't. I'm not shaving my head. Well,
he gave me a whole spiel about how when a
(17:40):
woman goes to Mica, if she has her hair, it's
probably not. I never heard of si these things.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
It was not.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's not. It can't be straight enough for it to
be cleansed sufficiently. You have to shave what kinds of
okay reasons why I should shave my head. I said, no,
I'm not shaving my head. Well, he won't be Masada kradition,
(18:11):
that's okay. I had a different reb Messada tradition. I
wasn't much of a student in Hebrew because I didn't
have the background. The seminary was already existing, and so
I was very much behind. Only when Radbertson Kaplan came
(18:33):
I enjoyed. I didn't have the background. I just went
to Talmatara and there were some other old time girls.
This was not the high school. This was just the
cemetery for the cemetery, the seminar for learning. I did
not have a good education. I would say, not elementary
(18:53):
or high school. The teachers came from They were public
school teachers, and they came tired after they had a
full day in public school. Four o'clock, yeah, and that's
when we had English. Yeah. So in the morning we
had Hebrew morning, and then there was a long, poor
(19:15):
lunch hour. And what I did, you wouldn't believe it.
I took there if we had a trolley. I don't
know if you remember trolley cars going from Williamsburg to
the Lower east Side. I went from I went back
to the Lower east Side to colin herbaut Ivashel. I
am a charity organization. I stuffed envelopes for fifty cents
(19:41):
an hour, and for that hour I made fifty It
was piecework. You had to work very fast. Stuffed the
envelopes and my friend and then we went back to
school and we made it entire. When I went to Basiakov,
we did lo to Dovn and idvened with Caverna. I
(20:04):
really enjoyed darvening. It was important to me. Yeah, I
thought it was, you know, with all the problems that
we had, I darven't so my mother got married. He
was very, very extreme. I didn't know such a thing exists.
(20:27):
I thought I was a From girl, very from But
he didn't approve of me. He didn't approve. The thing
is they had known each other from Europe before the war.
They came from the same town and he lost a
fat and he was very embedded because he lost a family,
(20:48):
and he already had a grandchild as well, four children
or five, a wife and flurt. He had come to
America in nineteen the eight because of poverty, but it
did not bring his family to America because this is
a triphon a medina. He didn't want them exposed to
(21:11):
this country, and he was just coming in to make money.
He didn't and then when it was too late. It
was very difficult to have a stepfather when you're trying
to compare him to your own father. Do you know
what hurt me the most? That was the worst, the
(21:32):
worst ever. When she could before she before the hooper,
before they got married. Of course I wasn't there. She
had long blonde hair. She hadn't been covering her hair
in Germany. She couldn't because of the anti Semitism. She
had beautiful hair. She shaved it. She shaved it. And
(21:55):
my mother was not vain, she had no vanity in
her at all. But it hurt me. I couldn't take it.
I just couldn't take it. She looked like a different
It was awful. From then on, it was me, you know,
I took a dislike exactly, you know, right away. It
just didn't start off well. For that reason, she was
(22:19):
okay with it because my mother had come from a
Hasidic background, and I think she was happy to embrace
Hasidism again because that's how she grew up. But in Europe,
the Hassi them were different. They were happy. She said,
she come from a very eight children. They were and
they were happy and always laughing. There wasn't a serious moment,
(22:43):
she said. She always reminisced about her happy childhood, except
she had to go to Germany because in Berlin as
a young woman, because the private because they were poverty streaking.
My mother I didn't know she was going to get married.
My mother had to approach me. She didn't know how
(23:04):
to how to tell me, so she was very wise.
She said to me, Nellie, when you get married, can
I come live with you? And in my heart I felt,
of course, you come live with me, But I said,
depends what my husband will want. I don't know. And
(23:26):
that was the right answer because she said, you will
get married and I'll be all alone and now I
have a chance to be to be have a life also,
and she had stiffid and do you know what, I answered, Mommy,
(23:46):
are we going to have steam now? Because I know
we're not going to stay in this apartment in the slums.
I knew that she get married, we're going to have
to move because it was only one bedroom, so he
was the only nephew that my stepfather had, and not
(24:07):
even a blood nephew, a nephew through marriage. But my
husband was a unique tie. He was a wonder. He
had such a sense of humor. Even though he lost
the Sell family, he just went on with life. He
was just to be much to be admired anyway, I
thought when he so he was a nephew, and he
(24:30):
came for two weeks with a good convention. He and
I know a cousin is coming. So when he walked in,
I thought, I said, he's a character. I didn't. I mean,
(24:51):
I was only seventeen. I was just seventeen. So but
I got to know him because I really got to
know him because he stayed and my aunt and uncle
in the meantime, they were survivors and they had come
to America and live on the next floor on the
(25:13):
third floor, so I kind of moved in with them
until because he stayed and this was the Railroad apartment,
couldn't give him a separate room, and I was happy
to be with them up upstairs. So we had when
I never would have thought that I would wind up
(25:34):
with him. I was so happy when he proposed we
went out not on a date, very informally maybe when
he was here about two or three weeks, and he
didn't understand English equit on very fast. He was very,
very smart, very bright. What happened is we went to
(25:56):
the movies. Yeah, and we saw the best years of
our lives. I don't know if you heard of that move.
I was fascinated. I loved this movie. And I didn't
think of him as a date, you know, as a
cousin with me. And he didn't understand English, and he
was squirming and all that, and I was annoyed. He
(26:17):
bothered me. I can't forget that movie. And he didn't
understand the word, so he felt rejected. And he never
asked me out again. And he didn't have to because
he lived in the house. We got to know each other,
didn't have to be you know, to know each other well.
(26:41):
He know my faults very much. I wasn't very much
domesticated it. I wasn't much of a ballabuster then I
think I was. He was here two weeks in the
country when he came to my grad I just happened
to be graduating in nineteen forty, so he came and
(27:02):
he was he knew to write up to send me
a card. I have it upstairs. I can see when
I graduated elementary school. I have a picture here. We
wore white dress, my friend and I. We wore white,
white dresses and white bows in our hair. I was
(27:22):
born and raised in Berlin, Germany. I wanted to go
back to my happy years, and that's why I went
back and I found I found my street. We came
with my son, and my son is named after my father.
And I was This was two thousand and one. How
(27:43):
old was I sixty one? When I went BA after
sixty years. I went back to the house where I
lived and was evacuated. We went back to the house
where I had to stay with four families hidden in
the ghetto. Their experienced Nazis with guns coming into the house.
(28:07):
Can't forget that. And then I went. I went back
to that three times. I made him. I mean, we
were there, they were white, This was an invitation. I
didn't go on my own. They paid for everything. Well
if they claimed they were not, they this was another
generation and they were not part of the Nazis socialist thing.
(28:31):
And they're horrified at what and they're ashamed, and they're
not going to say this, but they something genuine about
the remorse. They they couldn't do enough for us. They
whined and dined. We went back to my to where
I was living, to where I was raised as a child,
(28:56):
very happy. I went back to school where I went
to the first grade, second grade a little bit, and
then I went back to the park where I played,
and I remembered I couldn't play there anymore because it
said Jews forbidden. Said you see no more, there's no
sign anymore, and I'm sitting on the benches. I was
(29:17):
hopping up and down on the benches, see but you know.
And we went to the playground, and across the street
from the playground, my father in nineteen thirty seven was
walking by with you know, a bouptist. He was walking
by with a friend, and the friend snapped a picture
(29:38):
of me and my father, the only picture I have
of me and my father, that's all I have. And
I found the spot and I took her time and
take the picture, me and my son. I taught second grade,
and I did it as a substitute teacher because when
(30:00):
I graduated, there were no appointments made, too many teachers.
Finally I was sobbing, and it just happened. It was
like Pasha. Accidentally, I was called in for special ad teaching.
This was around maybe end of September or October. The
(30:22):
school year had already begun, and and the teacher who
I was sobbing for either she left or quit and
they asked me to complete. So this was like a
regular assignment. Asked me to complete the term. So I did,
and those again I was a pioneer in special education
(30:45):
because those at that time, those jobs were available. So
I kind of fell into it. I didn't choose it.
I fell into it. But it worked out good for me.
It worked out. It was rewarding, it really was. I
got a while I have the kids, and while I
(31:09):
was in college, became a job opportunity as a para professional.
It was two fifty an hour and that was a
very good showy at the time, and I took the job.
So I had to lend them out the college years.
That's why I couldn't because I wanted to make money
(31:32):
in between. And then I happened to accidentally meet an
acquaintance in college. Oh we didn't see you in a
long time. How are you doing? So I was telling
how I'm going for a tech. You know, I'd like
to be a teacher at that normal secretarial. I never
did become a secretary. I am going for education. So
(31:53):
and what are you doing? I said, meantime, I'm a
para professional. She said, so I'm doing it very slow.
So she said, aren't you being penny wise and pound foolish?
Why why are you a para professional? Finish up at
your college and then you'll make some You'll make four
times as much. What are you dragging out the time?
(32:16):
And I thought about this and I quit the following week.
I told them I'm no longer para with it. I'm
not longer teaching. It wasn't a para professional. They called
it educational assistant. They change labels all the time. I'll
tell you a little story also that years later, after
(32:37):
I had one little girl. She must have been ten
years older, and gave me a lot of trouble. This
really so, But she was smart and I really liked her.
So here she was in my class for usually there
in my class for a while. So I go to
(32:59):
the years later, I go to the bank. It's ten
years No, maybe it's sixteen years later. So I got
to the teller, I wouldn't have known who she is. Hi,
missus Chris Scott, I said, oh, you know me and
not I wouldn't. I don't remember you at all. But
(33:20):
tell me your name, Sha Tisha. You are Shatisha. I
couldn't believe. See Shatisha, you were the heart and you
were telling. And she said, Missus Chriscott, you made a difference.
So that was so hard with me. She said the
way she said it, and she was so sweet and everything.
(33:44):
And I met some of my students and lowmans. They
you know, they were labeled special and but they had
the ability to go further than that. They I went
to an affair and the women were in a separate
room and it was above it's something and the men
next we could hardly hear them because they were making speeches.
(34:09):
So what were the women supposed to do? The women
were talking to each other, and you know what the
men shouted at the women vibazard still you know, it's
like women shut up. They didn't even let us have
a conversation like we were but condescending, that's the word.
(34:32):
That's how I really felt. And I went. I used
to go to weddings and I saw what they served,
the men salmon and fish, but the women got these
little or dieuvs, these little I don't know, these catered
(34:54):
whatever they were it was, but not fish. And when
the waiter came around, and sometimes I was very forceful,
I said I want what the men have, and they offered,
and they and they gave me the fish. And some
women thought that was very nervy of me. I was
a new girl, and I was I was not one.
(35:20):
I came in with my friend, and my friend she
became popular right away, but I was not that that way,
and I kept to myself and I like to make
one or two friends. I didn't have to be necessarily
in a group or be the center of attraction. She
(35:42):
goes over to people and gets very friendly, and I'm
a little bit not introverted, but I think amiable. That's it.
And besides that, I was overweight as well, Yes I was,
I was telling Freda because I wasn't. In Germany, I
(36:04):
wasn't overweight. But when I came to America, so my
mother couldn't. She only cooked once a week. She didn't
have time. She had to go and peddle. Did she
ever of a woman pedaler. You know, you hear men peddling,
but my mother was very unique. She peddled. What did
I do? I ate a lot of sandwiches, rolls. I
(36:24):
must have had. You asked me what I had for
breakfast this morning? Oatmealer. Then I must have had about
three sandwiches in the morning, three for lunch. Yeah. Oh.
And they had a bakery downstairs where we lived. And
my mother said, whatever, tell the bakery guy give my
(36:46):
give my daughter on credit. Whatever she wants, let her
have it. I will pay you. And then there was
a delicatessen a block away, and she told them the
same thing. And I loved cake, and and I took advantage.
When I was sixteen, I felt very out of you know,
(37:07):
not like slim, like the ivy. I think that was
I was the only fat girl in the class. So
when you're teenager, you become motivated. So I didn't eat.
I start eating a lot of vegetables. And then by
(37:27):
that by that time, my mother was cooking. But I
didn't eat what she was cooking either, because she used
a lot of she fried, did a lot of frying.
She fried. I went to collect money for Israel in
the subways with my friend Miriam Halbashdam. After the war,
(37:47):
we used to go into the subways and ask everyone
to contribute to help grow trees for Israel. That was
an adventure. I lost all my shyness. I don't believe
I could do it. I just went into a crowd
of people. Attention, everybody, please help the people in Israel.
(38:07):
If it was because we felt, can't describe the feeling,
but I knew it was a homeland for the Jews,
even people were striving. But I know the Hasidic people
were against it because you go there after Masher comes. Yes, well,
half my family is living in Israel, and yes, it
(38:32):
was hard for me to make this decision. I'm living
in this house for so many years, and I have
my daughter, and my oldest daughter is living five blocks away,
so she and I are very good friends. It's going
to be very hard for me to be away from her.
I'm hoping when this COVID is over COVID nineteen minutes
(38:57):
that she will come to visit right away, which she
assures me she will. But and I'm so used to
the house, it's very hard to do this change. It
took a lot of convincing for my daughter in Israel
to make Aria. It took a while for me to side,
but I felt she was I have a very loving
(39:18):
family over there. She arranged a house for me. It's unbelievable,
three doors, three houses away. So and she said, well,
we don't know what will be. But in my age,
she was worried about me here. She wants me to
be safe, especially a block away from here. They had
(39:43):
this scandal. It was written up in the post. They
had a lot of deady bodies piled up in a
funeral that took a black away from my house when
she heard that. Can you imagine. Well, anyway, my husband,
if he would have lived, we would have settled in
Israel a long time ago. He wanted to. But he
(40:05):
got ill. He had a stroke, and that's another story.
You know. That was a hard time in my life
too when he Yeah, he was truly my love. I
miss him very He was a very unique type of man,
he really was. I guess all of us are unique,
every one of us, isn't that so? But he was
(40:27):
unique over other people. He had. He made me laugh.
He had such a sense of humor, jokes one after
the other. Just and when we talk about him, we
always remind ourselves. We reminisced, Oh Daddy said this, and
he said that, and we're laughing when we were there.
(40:47):
I'm visiting Israel a lot, twice a year sometimes, especially
when I was teaching. I always came during past of
vacation and Christmas Hanuka vacation. Chris Public School called it
Christmas vacation. Well, anyway, so my husband bought a plot
for us to be so I have a plot right
(41:10):
next to him in Hiram and Uchaut. You know that's
and and I will be buried there, so he would.
When he passed away, suddenly we took him to bury
in Israel. So he didn't live there, but in his
he's there now. Yeah,
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