The Girl in the Cellar by Gerda Krebs Seifer

Author:Gerda Krebs Seifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2019-06-12T12:48:45+00:00

Graduation from St. James Nursing School, 1949

(Gerda bottom row, second from left)

* * *

9 Katowice is not far from Oświęcim, the site of the concentration camp, Auschwitz.

10 Mrs. Masłowska had hoped to marry my uncle for companionship in her late years, but the marriage never happened. Uncle Henryk left Poland for Palestine and Mrs. Masłowska emigrated to Israel several years later.

11 Our friendship continued until Anita passed away two years ago.

Leaving England

My cousin, Zygmunt Schwarzer, miraculously survived the war. During an akcja, Zygmunt’s parents and his sweetheart, Renia Spiegel,12 hid in the attic of my Uncle Samuel Goliger’s building at Moniuszki 10. Because my uncle was part of the Judenrat, he was allowed to live outside the ghetto in his old apartment. The Nazis didn’t “find” their hiding place; it was probably hateful neighbors who reported them to the police. Mobile killing squads made up of SS special forces, Einsatzgruppen, took all three out into the street and shot them. In his own words, Zygmunt wrote “Three shots. Three lives lost! It happened last night at 10:30 p.m. Fate has decided to take my dearest ones away from me.” Later on, he was loaded on a train bound for Auschwitz and later, Bergen-Belsen, the first camp liberated by the Americans.

Like many young survivors, he married shortly after liberation. His wife, Genia (Jean), was a Polish Jew whom he’d met in Feldafing, a Jewish displaced persons (DP) camp in Germany. Zygmunt studied medicine in Stuttgart. After completing his studies, he and his wife immigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn. He had to take additional training in New York to obtain an American medical license and to practice pediatrics. After finding each other at the war’s end, we stayed in touch.

As much as I liked living in England, I had always had a secret wish to live in America, the kind of dream I didn’t think I’d ever realize, like living on the moon. Because Zygmunt was himself a refugee, he was unable to apply for a visa for me. However, he managed to get one from a doctor he worked with at the hospital, a man willing to vouch for me and say he’d support me, so that I wouldn’t be a burden on the United States government. Zygmunt had told his colleague that by the time I arrived in America, I’d be a registered nurse and self-sufficient. I never planned to ask him for any kind of support. Vouching for me, a total stranger, was more than generous, and I was deeply appreciative of his gesture.

During the war, getting such a document meant saving a person’s life. Many European Jews wrote to American relatives during the war, begging them for that precious piece of paper, one that would save their lives, but sadly, many people believed their families were exaggerating the situation in Europe about the plight of the Jews; they also worried that if their relatives were to come to America, they’d be obligated to support them. And so they remained silent.

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