She's a Mensch! by Anne Dublin

Author:Anne Dublin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Second Story Press
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Rosalie Silberman Abella

1946–

Toronto, Canada, 1950

“Tata, what’s wrong?” four-year-old Rosalie asked as she went to meet her father at the door of their small apartment. Jacob Silberman’s shoulders were slumped and his eyes were sad. He sat down and took her onto his lap. “The Canadian government will not allow me to practice law until I am a citizen. But I cannot wait so long.” He stroked his daughter’s hair. “Do not worry, little one. I will find another way to support our family.” Rosalie put her hand into her father’s hand. “Tata, when I grow up, I will be a lawyer too.”

Rosalie Silberman’s father, Jacob, was born in 1910 in Sienno, Poland to the son of a bookstore owner. When Jacob began university, he was one of only four Jews admitted that year. However, he eventually obtained his law degree from the prestigious Jagiellonian University in Kraków. That was an accomplishment truly remarkable for a Jew in 1930s antisemitic Poland.

Rosalie’s mother, Fanny, was the daughter of a wealthy roofing supply manufacturer. She was born in 1917 in the town of Ostrowiec, Poland. Fanny and Jacob married on September 3, 1939—just as the Germans were invading Poland; just when World War II began.

Somehow, the couple managed to survive the six terrible years of war, although they could not stay together for most of the time. Fanny and her mother were imprisoned in various labor and concentration camps. In 1945, they were liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Most of their families, even Fanny and Jacob’s young son, were killed in Treblinka, a death camp in Poland.

Fanny never gave up hope that Jacob was alive. When she was finally freed, she and her mother went back to Ostrowiec where she and Jacob had lived before they were rounded up and imprisoned. She learned that Jacob was in Theresienstadt, near Prague. Somehow, in spite of all the chaos in the postwar period, she managed to travel to Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic). She learned that the people in the camp were quarantined because of a typhoid epidemic, but she sneaked in with a garbage detail anyway. She found Jacob, who was recovering from the illness, and managed to get him out of the camp. The couple spent a few days in Prague and then returned to Poland.

However, they soon realized it wasn’t safe to stay in Poland because of the prevailing antisemitism and frequent attacks on surviving Jews. So, along with Fanny’s mother, they made their way to a displaced persons (DP) camp in Stuttgart, Germany. They hoped they would eventually leave the camp and be able to find a new home in a different country.

Jacob became the president of the DP camp’s Jewish Community Council. He even taught himself English when the Americans asked him to set up a system of legal services for displaced persons in southwest Germany.

Even though Jacob and Fanny mourned the loss of their home and their families, they were eager to start a new family. Rosalie was born in the DP camp on July 1, 1946, and her sister Toni was born there in 1948.

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