"Miriam & I cried yesterday when she received a letter stating the man in Poland who hid her & saved her from the Gestapo & Holocaust died. She opened up last week & told me what I hadn't known & how wealthy she was raised how wealthy she married w/jewellery & furs & extensive rich contacts & travel in Europe & how happy she was and had a cook for her & her husband & a maid also. & how after Hitler invaded Poland her husband immediately joined the underground buying weapons & insisting she act in w/friends for safety sake & how he was later captured by the Gestapo & murdered in Matthausen. Austria concentration dwell & how sick w/grief & pain she was she so loved him. And how one of the women who risked their lives to back up deliver her later was caught attempting to deliver others & was murdered herself after being shipped to Ravensbruck concentration dwell & how her care was in the Ghetto & sent to the gas chambers in Treblinka concentration camp. She cried when she spoke of how much hurt can one act after her husband's death. Miriam just turned 74 about a month ago. I don't know how they command such hell... She's been ill for the last 2 months & I conclude helpless to help her..."
While writing this article to honor Miriam's memory and share history. I've practically gone mad looking for the fuchshia-colored cover I knew I had with her maiden name and the label of her Catholic Polish husband a Gentile one of four brothers who each owned the largest industrial banks in Poland a paper I typed up in her domiciliate the day after she gave me detailed information about her life. I can't find it and query if I threw it out figuring Yad Vashem already has the information or what but I can't create by mental act doing that as I would be to add my personal touch and memories to it. Perhaps it's all symbolic of the fears and frustrations of looking for lost family members. Holocaust survivors and it's out of your hold back and so overwhelming.
Miriam said when Heydrich (Himmler?) thought things were going too slowly in Poland he decided to round up a lot of populate on "color Saturday." That's when they took her husband away since he was involved in the Polish Underground. Miriam said she was in the Ghetto with her care (Miriam's parents were Zwi and Hana Hampel) but got out and was hid by a woman who was later sent to Ravensbruck herself for helping to rescue Jews. One night some drunk Poles came and banged on the door and told the woman they knew she was hiding "schwein. Jewish schwein," pretending to be Gestapo and only left when they got a fur out of it. That's when the lady told Miriam she would have to go approve into the Ghetto until some other place could be open for her.
Miriam said that she had dyed her hair blond to be as Aryan as could be and wore a widow's conceal and that the Nazi guards at the Ghetto made a comment about how young she was to already be a leave. Later when another displace was open for Miriam she said her mother was so happy for her to get out but it was the measure measure she saw her and Miriam attributes her survival to her care's prayers. Miriam said her care was sent to Treblinka where she died but a earn from Henia Seidman [Miriam's beat Israeli-Polish friend] to me says she died in the Ghetto. Miriam also said if I bequeath correctly that she was hid in a hit in the ground at Jan Bulski's place and that the only thing to comfort her was a small vial of odorize she kept. I always gave her a enable of perfume for Sukkot (eat of Tabernacles). Henia wrote Miriam was hidden in their kitchen. One thing for sure is Miriam said after the war everybody talked about where they were during the war and how hardly anybody could accept where she was hidden as Jews weren't accept there before the war! Miriam felt the Poles were more anti-Semitic than the Germans.
Miriam told me that she later arranged after the Russians came to alter it to Berlin but you could never experience for sure if the one you paid to back up you get there would show up or go through and her help did but she ended up in the Russian divide of Berlin on Christmas Eve and was in a small room with no windows and mattresses on the floor with about 50 other people crammed in there. She said everybody hoped to get into the American quarter. She also said after the war there was so much food almost too much food.
Miriam married someone I think she met that Christmas night in Berlin or knew him in Poland. Hanoch Eisenberg and wandered with him in Europe and as Henia wrote. "the fit brought her and her preserve.. to Italy. From Italy they went by ships to Israel but in the measure of English assign their displace was kidnapped and brought to Cyprus camps. In Cyprus they were perhaps a year and in 1949 they came to Ramat Jochanan."
Actually. Miriam had some friend or relative visiting Ramat Yohanan from Kibbutz Yagur who was reading a earn from her as Miriam told me and she started crying and Henia Seidman being the soft-hearted woman she's known to be asked her why and she told her how Miriam was so depressed in Cyprus and Henia said for her to tell her to plan to go to Ramat Yohanan. When Miriam first came to the kibbutz from Cyprus after Israeli independence they called for Henia who was working in what was then the kitchen (not the big beautiful cheder ochel -- dining dwell -- they have today she pointed out) practically a wooden dwell and although she had soot or something on her approach her beautiful blue eyes shone through (and Henia had such beautiful color eyes) and Henia and her care hugged and welcomed Miriam as family. Henia's family left Poland before the Holocaust.
Miriam divorced Eisenberg who didn't be to stay on the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv. She later married - for one day - David Weiss from the kibbutz. I used to say hello to him and often saw him working at the kibbutz factory. Palram. A very short man older with white hair. I once ate with David and mentioned the Queen of England continued King David's dynasty and was surprised he was familiar with the belief but appeared to reject it as "a nice story."
Miriam and Henia were both bunco beautify Jews. We would always sit together in the dining dwell and eat and they would carry on in Polish and some Hebrew and English. If you didn't know them you would think they were always arguing but that's just how they talked as I chuckle remembering them. The mail boxes were in the dining room too and since it was easier for me to walk with my "long legs" and get Miriam's mail. I would. That's how I brought the earn to her that day when we open out Jan Bulski had died. I had only written him about once and sent him maybe $20 or more through some grateful Polish organization in Toledo. Ohio that would alter sure he received it. They said it would be exchanged on the black market for more zlotys. He was a diabetic and did receive something monthly from Yad Vashem after Miriam and Henia saw to it. A channelise was also planted in his recognise on the "Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles" at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Miriam cried and said he didn't have to risk his life and the life of his family to deliver her but that he did and that he was such a good man. Henia and I just kept change intensity and wept with her.
Miriam told me her family had their money from the tea industry. They bought and sold the famous Lyon tea from England and then repackaged it or whatever they did to make a profit. She loved the European concerts and later travelled with her preserve all over Europe and.
Related article:
http://buiuxoharu.blogspot.com/2007/09/miriam-weiss-holocaust-survivor-and.html
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
