Reflections on the class...

As the semester nears its end, I feel that we have come so far from where we started. The idea of a class that was virtually team taught was daunting at first, but I think that our class has proven that it can be successful. There were many ups and downs and thinks that needed to be worked through, but everyone was so open-minded and easy going that I think it was able to be a success. The only thing I still wish would have happened, would have been for there to be like a class meeting of the entire class sometime in the beginning of the semester. I know with conflicting schedules and everyone's busy lives it would have been difficult, but I think it would have helped the class as a whole. I think that the opportunity to interview a Holocaust survivor is the one thing I will definitely take away from this class. Not everyone gets the chance and I feel lucky to say that I did.

I want to thank Dr. Clark and Dr. Levitsky for their innovative ideas and willingness to make this class a success for all students involved. I know that it took plenty of time out of their own personal lives to work through all of the problems that we encountered, so I am very grateful that they are such dedicated professors and wonderful people. I think that it is safe to say that I will never have a class quite like this again, so I am thankful to have gotten the chance to experience something so new!

Gerda's Story: A Response

At first, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this experience. Before meeting Gerda, I had never met a Holocaust survivor before. With Holli and Dorothy’s warnings that some survivors might not actually want to talk about their experiences, I was afraid that Alison and I might find ourselves in that situation. I just didn’t want to be intrusive, considering the sensitive nature of this project. Alison, though, knows Gerda from past events and when I found out that Gerda visits schools to talk about her experience quite frequently, I felt a little more at ease about this experience.

When Alison and I arrived at Gerda’s home, she greeted us at the door and brought us into the living room, asking as we walked in whether we had any plans for the evening. She had prepared dinner, she said, and we could eat after she told us her story. “It takes about two hours to tell,” she told us, “so we can eat afterward.” I thought it was interesting that she knew how long it would take to tell her story, but it makes sense considering she makes such frequent appearances.

As we sat down, Gerda asked if we had prepared questions for her. Neither Alison nor I had known where to begin, exactly, with our questions, so she started right in with her story. Gerda was very blunt, making everything quite clear for us and not skirting over any details. During her story, she would ask us questions about situations she had found herself in, inquiring as to what Alison or I would have done in her situation. When, during the German occupation of Poland, she had stepped out per her parents’ request and was asked by German policemen if she was a Jew. Gerda paused in her story and asked us to put ourselves in that situation. Would we have said yes or no? With either response, Gerda had an explanation as to what would have happened. She wanted us to understand what had been going on in her mind during this exchange. Weighing the pros and cons of either response, Gerda answered that yes, she was a Jew, but had no armband because she was not yet 13 years old. When they asked for her address, she gave it to them but told them that Russians had taken her family’s belongings already, in the hopes that this might prevent them from coming to her house. The policemen had told her they would come to check her papers, but, luckily, never did.

Gerda also asked us what we would have taken with us if we had been in Poland when the ghetto was built in 1942. We thought for a minute and came up with answers like blankets, pictures, and family mementos. “What about pots and pans? What would you cook with?” Gerda asked. She told us that when she asks students this question, sometimes they answer that they would have brought their laptops or cell phones. Chuckling, she tells us that she explains to the students that this was a time before laptops and cellular telephones, encouraging them to think about the things in life that they really could not live without.

As Gerda continued her story, Alison and I learned that her mother was away by the Nazis while she [Gerda] had been placed in hiding. Here, Gerda paused to tell us that she and her mother had been very close. She was devastated at the thought that she had never been able to say goodbye to her mother, or tell her that she loved her. This was one of the hardest parts of the story to listen to, because here Gerda became very emotional. She had made it very clear that her entire experience had been devastating, but losing her mother had impacted her so greatly that it was obviously a difficult thing to talk about. She has no memory of her experiences in the ghetto after finding out that her mother was gone. Gerda continued to tell us the story, explaining that she was then put into hiding with a horrible woman whom she had to call “mother,” making her situation all the more difficult as she was still grief-stricken over the loss of her actual mother.

While in hiding with this woman, Gerda cared for three children, two teenage boys and one young girl, all the while being called “Alice,” the name her new “mother” had given her. The woman constantly took advantage of Gerda, manipulating her into situations, all the while justifying her actions with the idea that she was responsible for saving Gerda. Eventually, the woman’s husband, to whom she was unfaithful, returned, becoming a beacon of kindness for Gerda. Although he could not do much for her, he was compassionate and understood the difficult situation she was in.

Gerda and the woman’s husband returned briefly to her hometown, looking for items her family had hidden that the woman wanted to find and, in all likelihood, sell. While there, a young man recognized Gerda and told her what had happened to her father, whom Gerda had not seen since they last met, when he explained that he was going into hiding in a room outside of the ghetto. He told her that he was keeping a cyanide pill with him at all times, which he would take if the Germans found him. The young man explained that her father, having brought several others into hiding with him, was caught when he went out for food. That was all he knew, and Gerda never found any other information. Gerda was telling us how sorry she was that she never got the young man’s name, because she was never able to contact him again. The Red Cross couldn’t tell her anything about what had happened to her father, and here she was as emotional as she had been when she told us about her mother, calling her father “Daddy” while she spoke of him.

At the war’s end, Gerda was provided with postage by her “mother’s” husband so she could write to her family, and he encouraged her to leave the house when, in 1946, an old neighbor asked her to come live with her and her husband. Although Gerda’s “mother” had taken the money this neighbor had sent, Gerda eventually got it back and left as soon as she could, finding herself in the care of an old family friend.

Gerda told us that, upon arriving to her old neighbor’s home, she was shy. She was dirty and did not want the old neighbor to see the lice in her hair. At this new home, Gerda took a bath for the first time in three years, and the following day the woman bought her a new pair of shoes, a skirt, and two blouses. Gerda told us that she was overwhelmed by the choices she now had. “Should I wear the pink blouse or the white blouse?” she would ask herself, a choice she had not had the pleasure of making in a very long time. Gerda digressed briefly to tell us about the quality of clothing in those times, about how cherished every article of clothing was, unlike today.

Eventually Gerda was given the opportunity to go to England, which she accepted, meeting with a Rabbi in Warsaw to confirm her spot on the journey. She became a registered nurse during her five years in England, then came to America when her cousin got her an affidavit. Gerda’s strength of spirit, evident to us in her story telling, got her through the numerous obstacles that she faced in America. She and her husband were married in 1955, having met at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Gerda’s husband joined us for dinner after he story came to a close, where we talked about our schools, religious upbringings, ideas for the future, etc. Gerda and her husband are very sweet, and it was a wonderful experience. Alison and I left after being given a brief introduction to Gerda’s family via photographs set out on a bookshelf.

Gerda’s story was, and is, incredible. I can’t imagine the strength Gerda had, and must still have, to have been able to go through the ordeal she experienced and then talk about it so many years later. Alison and I were lucky, I think, to be paired with a survivor who was somehow so levelheaded about her experience. It’s amazing that she, as well as the other survivors with whom our peers have been paired, are capable of seeing the good they can do by telling their stories.

-K

Gerda's story...

Gerda Seifer was born in Przemsyl, Poland, which was an old city divided into east and west by the San river. The east is important with respect to her story. She was an only child. Her father owned a fabric store (she laughs as she explains that when she was younger clothes weren't already made and she certainly didn't have as many as girls tend to nowadays).

She attended an all girls school for elementary. During the time 6th grade was considered high school and she was in 6th grade one year before the war started. She attended a school where only 2 of the 150 girls were Jewish. She didn't recall experiencing any anti-Semitism and she identified more as being Polish than Jewish.

Her parents tended to keep bad news a secret. As a result, she knew very little about Hitler. In early 1939, her father came home very upset. There were flyers being passed around advising people not to shop in stores that were owned by Jews.

On September 1, 1939 3 bombs were dropped. Germans walked to Poland and Polish soldiers had no ammunition, the Germans had taken it all. People fled east toward Russia, not just Jews. Gerda's family decided not to leave. Later, when things got dangerous, her father left temporarily and then came back. The townspeople assured him that he had no enemies, and thus had nothing to fear.

The Germans came just two short weeks after and rounded up all of the Jews. 700 men were taken into the forest and shot. Gerda remembers seeing two Jewish boys with a Nazi pointing a machine gun at them. She had really believed that the Nazis wouldn't harm women and children, but she was mistaken.

To help us understand, she drew a map on the back of my notebook. She distinguished that west of the river were German guards and on her side (the eastern) there were Russian soldiers. Hitler had signed a pact of non-aggression with Stalin, resulting in peace on the eastern front. While her father was temporarily in hiding, the Germans came to her family's fabric store and took EVERYTHING. Newspapers everywhere were filled with propaganda. They were now under Russian occupation. It was considered to be an “Iron Curtain Country” meaning that no one was allowed to enter or exit. Intelligencia was killed off and they had to reteach people. Stores everywhere were empty. One night, Russians came and arrested her father, they didn't know why he was being taken away. They searched her family's apartment and found china, linens, jewelry, and money. While her and her mother watched, they took everything. There was nothing they could do to stop it. Her father was considered an enemy of the state because he owned a business and was sent to Siberia. Upon his release, her family then moved to Veuve, with the false papers they had made. While they were there her mother took a job selling leather gloves, and her father became a textile worker.

In June of 1941, Russians were fleeing the city. A German plane had dropped bombs and that was followed by German occupation. They were trained to be very efficient. Gerda had heard horror stories, but never believed them until she saw it herself. There were orders on the loudspeakers in German and Polish requiring that everyone register. Rations were very small, Poles received better rations, and Germans received the best rations.

Life as she had known it had completely changed. She wasn’t allowed to go to school because she was seen as being subhuman because she was Jewish. They weren't allowed to use public transportation. They had a strict curfew of 8pm. They weren't allowed to go to the park. They weren't allowed to go to the movies. She said, "anything we used to do, we couldn't do anymore."

She recalls how it was easy to spot a Jew in Poland, but she didn't really look that Jewish. When she was 13, her parents sent her to run an errand. While she was out, she was approached by 2 policemen. She had absolutely no rights and knew that. They asked if she was a Jew and she said "yes." They asked why she wasn't wearing her armband and she said she wasn't quite 13 yet. They then asked her for her address, being quick on her feet and good under pressure, she told them that the Russians had already taken everything her family owned. She went home realizing how dangerous it really was out there for the Jews. Luckily for her and her family, the policemen never returned to check her papers.

In 1942, the Nazis built a wall around the town creating a ghetto. It was tremendously overcrowded. Her family found a space in a greenhouse with a dirt floor. There were already 18 families there, making hers the nineteenth. They had an umbrella over the bed, only one small gas burner, and 6 or 7 people sharing one tiny room. The Germans rounded up people, you either went to work or you went to the concentration camps. Children were hidden in drawers, she recalls that along with the elderly, they suffered the most. Many people died in the ghetto and they had to clear away the bodies. Everyone had a will to live, despite there being lots of disease. Her father took work making uniforms for the soldiers.

There was a big round up, but her father found her a place to hide. She said what would ultimately end up being her goodbyes and went to hide in a cellar. She spent six weeks in a pitch black 4x6 box where she did lots of thinking. At first, she thought it was pretty cool, but eventually she had nothing left to think about. There was a mouse in the cellar with her and he became her company. Her wish while she was hiding was to run barefoot, see the sun, and feel the wind blowing through her hair. One day when she couldn't take it anymore, she walked out onto the street. Luckily the street was empty, but the woman who was hiding her saw her from the window and grabber her. They talked and she eventually convinced Gerda to go back into hiding.

Six weeks later, she went back to the ghetto. Immediately upon her return, she wanted to know about her mother. She wasn't there when she got back and Gerda desperately wanted to know where she was. She was told that her cousin who was with them had gone into hiding, but eventually went back. Her mother had the option to go into hiding alone, but she decided to stay with him. They were taken by the Nazis and never returned again. Gerda never expected that when she left to go into hiding, she would come back and never see her mother again. She has no real memory of life in the ghetto after finding out that her mother was killed.

Her father was desperate to save her. He found a Polish woman had given birth to a baby girl who died and would have been around the same age as Gerda. The woman had gotten married again and had three more kids. She was now separated and had a new boyfriend, whose child she was now pregnant with. She couldn't work and her family was starving. The woman took Gerda in as her daughter and named her "Alice." She cooked, cleaned, and watched the baby. She learned all about Catholicism. She knew all the prayers and all about the holidays.

The woman had 2 boys (13 and 14) who were told that Gerda was Jewish. She also had a daughter who was 3 0r 4 and was told that "Alice" had lived with relatives. The little girl was awful and would say "you're not my sister." Gerda took care of the baby all day and had no one to talk to. She was very lonely and still grieving the death of her mother. This made it very difficult for her to call this woman "mother." Her "mother" was a terribly mean woman and Gerda just wanted her real mother back. During this time, she had to be prepared for anything. She often took the baby to church. The woman's real husband came back and she promised him she would be faithful. Once this happened, the woman would take "Alice" to church and then meet up with her lover.

After the war ended, he gave Gerda stamps to write to her family. They moved west because the Russians said that people had to become Russian or go west. They went to Poznan where they lived in a tiny room. There were bed bugs and lice. Gerda was absolutely miserable. She had become the woman's slave. She resented the fact that she had missed 5 teenage years and school. She longed for an education.

Gerda's father never came back. He went to Germany on false papers. The last time she saw him, they met in a factory. He had rented a room outside the ghetto. He refused to let the Germans kill him, he had a tiny pill in his belt buckle, it was cyanide. Gerda contacted the Red Cross after war, but they had no idea what happened to him.

She went back to her hometown with the husband because her family had hidden goods, which the woman wanted, but they were no longer there. While they were in her hometown, there was a young man who recognized her. He told her that he knew what had happened to her father. He said that he had taken people to his room and was caught getting food. That was all he knew, she still wishes she had gotten this man's name, or something so that she could further inquire about her father.

Out of 40 relatives, only 2 survived.

In January of 1946, she left the awful woman who she was forced to call "mother" for so long. An old family friend had found her. She had sent money and wanted Gerda to come live with them, they had lost their own daughter during the war. The woman opened the letter and borrowed the money. Gerda was told she couldn't leave until she found a replacement which she knew was impossible, but she played along. She was depressed and upset. At one point, she considered suicide, but decided to leave instead. She packed her few belongings and listened to the woman scream at her. The husband told her that if she didn't leave now, she never would. She got her money back and left.

She traveled on the outside of the train, holding the handles. She had to get out of this woman's hold. She arrived at her family friend's house and started crying. She took a bath, something that she hadn't done in 3 years. The next day, she got a new pair of shoes, a skirt, and two blouses.

She was presented with an opportunity to go to England and she really wanted to go. She went to Warsaw to meet with the Rabbi, where a Polish Jew translated. She filled the last space! Six weeks later, she was in England, where she spent the next five years. In 1950, she graduated as a registered nurse. Her cousin, who was the only other surviving member of her family, was already in the United States and got her an affadavit.

In 1951, she came to America. She was presented with many obstacles. She needed a high school diploma and a nursing license. She was also told that she had to take English, but when she told the woman that she dreams in English, she got out of having to take it. Things always had a way of working out for her.

In New York, she was married to her husband in 1955. They met at Mount Sinai Hospital. They had three children and now have four grandchildren.

Przemsyl, Poland

Gerda Seifer was born in Przemsyl, Poland

(located on the bottom right of the map, close to Ukraine)

Still trying to digest...

Kristin and I met with Gerda last Thursday and I really feel like I'm still letting her story sink in. Kristin and I met at the Starbucks off of the 405 and we definitely hit lots of traffic on the way to Long Beach. We ended up being late, but I called Gerda to let her know. We made it to her street, but realized that the house number she gave us was nowhere to be found. I felt bad calling her again, but didn't know what else to do. She just laughed and apologized. It was so great to see her again, as it had been a LONG time since I saw her last.

She sat us down and asked us how we wanted to hear her story. We decided it would be easier for us to just tell it to us, and then we could ask questions if we had any. She gave us a ton of background information, which made me feel as if we were really getting the whole story. I am not sure I am ready to reflect on the story quite yet, but it was definitely very powerful. It also made me see Gerda in a completely different way. She is such an amazing woman and has so much to teach others. She was wise beyond her years during the war and that wisdom has only continued to flourish as the years have gone by.

More later!

Meeting Gerda

So today's the day! I'm meeting Gerda for the first time while Alison, as you can see from the picture below, already knows her.
I don't really have any preconceived notions as to how this is going to work out. I'm really looking forward to meeting Gerda and getting to know her. I think I'm feeling a little nervous about hearing her story: I've never heard a first hand account of the Holocaust, the experience I've had with it has been limited to books and film.
Anyway, we're meeting this evening at Gerda's house for dinner, right Alison? I'm just heading over after school this afternoon, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the 405-S will be clear!

-Kristin

The beautiful Gerda!