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.