Yn gearhing mei ús “Partners yn Soarch” programma finansierd troch de UJA-Federaasje fan New York, de Y sil ynterviews hawwe fan seis lokale oerlibbenen om it ferhaal fan elk yndividu better te begripen. Dizze ynterviews sille wurde toand yn 'e Hebrieuske Tabernakelgalery “In tiid fan oarloch belibje en fierder: Portretten fan Spirited Holocaust Survivors”. De galery giet op freed 8 novimber iepen.
Fredy Seidel lives in Washington Heights. Through this initiative, he has learned more about the Y and plans to become a member of the Center for Adults Living Well @ the Y.
Fredy Seidel(sculpture by Peter Bulow: WWW.PETERBULOW.COM)
After Kristallnact, the Seidels realized that it was no longer safe to stay in Germany so they decided to contact a Jewish agency in Breslau to begin preparations to leave. There was a Jewish organization that worked tirelessly to help Jews get out of Germany. The organization’s first priority was helping to get prisoners out of concentration camps, which was a very expensive task because the German government would not let prisoners leave the camps unless they were able to produce a roundtrip ticket out of the country. Fredy’s parents received a telegram at their synagogue on Saturday morning during services from this agency, stating that the agency found money for them to leave Germany and that they should come immediately. The agency had enough money to rescue Fredy’s parents, grandmother, and one of his brothers, Horst. Fredy’s oldest brother Rudi would be sent to Berlin to stay with an interfaith family in the hope that he would receive an affidavit to go to America. However, Rudi would never make it to America; while he was in Berlin, he was picked up from the street and sent to Auschwitz.
Yn 1939, the family left Bremerhaven, Germany and arrived in Shanghai a month later. After getting off the boat, the Seidel’s were taken to the ghetto that had been organized by the local Sephardic community. Fredy Seidel was born on May 1, 1941 in Shanghai, China. While in Shanghai, Fredy’s parents attempted to make a living by doing anything that they could to make money. The conditions were poor and made it very difficult to find work. The ghetto of 25,000 people was fed by a community kitchen that was also funded by the local Sephardic community. The ghetto had one synagogue, which had been built by Russian Jews. The synagogue became known as Ohel Moishe and that synagogue is still standing today.
The Jews who lived in Shanghai ghetto were housed in warehouses that were divided into 10 rooms. Each room provided shelter to 28 people. There were no walls; it was just one large room with bunk beds. Fredy’s mom would use a trunk and tablecloth to make a table for their meals. Conditions were not very sanitary. Bygelyks, the toilet was about 150 feet away from the room, so the Seidel family would keep pot under their bed in case they had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. In the morning, they would take their pots to the toilet to dispose of the waste. There were two community showers, one for men and one for women; this did not allow for any privacy. Approximately 3000 people died from malnutrition and unsanitary conditions. Fredy recalls that you were not allowed to leave the ghetto without special permission from the police commissioner.
Not all of the refugees in the ghetto were Jewish. Fredy remembers that there were people who came because they had interfaith marriages. When asked about his community, Fredy states, “For me, I felt a very strong sense of Judaism and a very strong belief in G-d.” While living in Shanghai, Fredy recalls learning a lot about Judaism and what it means to have faith. He goes on to explain that a large portion of the refugees came from a town in Germany called Selisia.
The Jewish community in Shanghai was very tightknit and poverty stricken. People tried to make the best of their time there. The Jews created their own newspaper called the Yellow Post. Fredy recalls the Chinese being very helpful and shared what little they had with the Jewish community.
Fredy attended four Jewish schools within five years in Shanghai. He also attended a British school. Fredy recalls having to attend Anglican services while in the British school. There, the students were punished by the teachers with a bamboo stick, which they used to hit the children. This was very different from his experience in the Jewish schools. He described the Jewish schools as very nurturing. Since there were many refugee students left, a small school was created to accommodate them. There were three students to every teacher. This was not very conducive to learning because of the way the teacher’s attention was decided.
While in the ghetto, Fredy’s fathers tried making a living by collecting old razor blades, sharpening them, and trying selling them to the Chinese, but this did not work out. He then tried to become a shoemaker. Additionally, he was the cantor at Ohel Moshe synagogue.
The Red Cross came to Shanghai and distributed questionnaires to the refugees to figure out who was looking for their relatives. A year later, they came back and posted a large bulletin board on a wall with a list of names of the people they had been looking for. This is how Fredy’s father found out that his oldest son had been murdered in Auschwitz. He also found out that his parents and siblings had all been killed. Fredy remembers, “my father collapsed into the arms of my brother. That’s how people found out what happened to members of their family. It wasn’t the most sensitive way to find out.”
Úteinlik, the Chinese government told the Jews that they could not stay there any longer. In 1952, the Seidel’s returned back to Germany. They were one of the last thirty families to leave Shanghai. Fredy’s parents would get startup money to rebuild their lives once again in Germany.
When the Seidel’s got back to Germany, it had been divided into East and West Germany. Fredy’s parents were from a German town called Breslau, which had become a part of Poland, and was considered to be a part of West Germany so the restitution that was promised upon their return to Germany did not apply to them. This was financially devastating to the Seidel’s. This made the Seidel’s resort to smuggling good between East and West Germany in order to help them survive. The Seidel’s moved into a small apartment and Fredy’s father became a cantor again. On February 2, the Seidel’s received their visa to come to America. On February 22, Fredy’s mother was admitted to the intensive care unit where she would stay until September and would come out in a wheelchair. Fredy’s bar mitzvah was going to be in May. He was supposed to be the first boy with two Jewish parents to be bar mitzvahed in post-war Berlin. Many rabbis came from all over to be there for this occasion. The night before his bar mitzvah, Fredy and his father decided that they did not want to have the bar mitzvah without his mother being present and healthy again. He ended up waiting until after she was discharged from the hospital to have his bar mitzvah.
The Seidel’s were stuck in Germany for 7 years. In 1959, the Seidel’s made their way to America. The family decided to go to San Francisco to visit one of Fredy’s brothers before settling down in New York. What was supposed to be a two week trip turned into a yearlong stay. While in San Francisco, Fredy worked as a busboy and then a stock boy to try and help his family financially. After his family decided to move to New York, Fredy worked in Gimble’s selling stamps. He had dreams of attending Columbia University and after working at Gimble’s for a short while, his dreams were realized. Fredy enrolled at Columbia University at 20 jier âld. Although he would be drafted into the army while at Columbia, because of the tropical illnesses he contracted as a child in Shanghai he was not accepted into the army. In his last job, Fredy worked as a paralegal at a law firm for 20 jier.
Dit ynterview waard útfierd troch Halley Goldberg fan it Y's Partners in Caring-inisjatyf en heart ta de YM&YWHA fan Washington Heights en Inwood. It gebrûk fan dit materiaal sûnder skriftlike tastimming fan sawol de Y as de ynterviewde is strang ferbean. Fyn hjir mear oer it Partners in Caring-programma: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebrieusk Tabernakel Armin en Estelle Gold Wing Galleryyn grutske gearwurking meide YM&YWHA fan Washington Heights en Inwoodnoeget jo út foar úsnovimber/desimber, 2013 Útstalle“In tiid fan oarloch belibje en fierder: Portretten fan Spirited Holocaust Survivors” mei foto's en byldhoukeunst fan: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW en ROJ RODRIGUEZ. Yn gearhing mei in spesjale Tsjinst yn it ûnthâldfan de75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht -The Night of Broken GlassTsjinsten en Artist syn Iepeningsresepsje, freed, 8 novimber, 2013 7:30 p.m.
In ferklearring fan de Y : ” Foar tsientallen jierren is de Washington Heights / Inwood Y west, en bliuwt te wêzen, in haven foar dyjingen dy't taflecht sykje, respekt en begryp. In protte dy't ús doarren ynfiere en dielnimme oan ús programma's hawwe besiket troch besikingen en beproevingen dy't wy net iens kinne begjinne foar te stellen. Foar guon, wa sil diel útmeitsje fan dizze eksposysje, ien sa'n horror is bekend wurden by de wrâld gewoan as "De Holocaust" – de systematyske moard op seis miljoen Joaden fan Europa.
Wy by de Y ûnthâlde it ferline, earje dejingen dy't yn dy tiid libbe en stoaren, en beskermje de wierheid foar takomstige generaasjes. Om 'e wille fan ússels en ús bern, wy moatte de ferhalen trochjaan fan dyjingen dy't it kwea fan 'e oarloch meimakke hawwe. Der binne lessen te learen foar de takomst. De ynterviews binne dokumintearre troch Halley Goldberg, in programma supervisor "Partners in Caring".. Dit fitale programma waard mooglik makke troch in romhertich subsydzje fan 'e UJA-Federaasje fan New York, ûntworpen om relaasjes mei synagogen yn Washington Heights en Inwood te ferbetterjen. “
Us mienskiplike keunsteksposysje hat portretten en ynterviews fan oerlibbenen fan 'e Holocaust, Hannah Eisner, Charlie en Lilli Friedman, Pearl Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel en Ruth Wertheimer, dy't allegear lid binne fan 'e Hebrieuske tabernakel, in joadske gemeente dy't in protte Dútske joaden flechtsje foar de nazi's en gelok genôch om nei Amearika te kommen, kaam yn de lette jierren 1930 by. Dêrneist sille wy ek de Holocaust-oerlibbene Gizelle Schwartz Bulow earje- mem fan ús keunstner Peter Bulow en oerlibbene fan 'e Twadde Wrâldkriich Yan Neznanskiy - heit fan' e Chief Program Officer fan 'e Y, Victoria Neznansky.
In spesjale sabbatstsjinst, mei sprekkers, ta oantins fan it 75-jierrich jubileum fan Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) giet foarôfgeand oan de iepening fan de Gold Gallery / Y eksposysje:Tsjinsten begjinne prompt om 7:30 pm. Allegear wurde útnoege om by te wenjen.
Foar galery iepeningstiden of foar fierdere ynformaasje kinne jo skilje mei de synagoge op212-568-8304 of sjohttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgArtist syn ferklearring: Yael Ben-Sionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Sion waard berne yn Minneapolis, MN en grutbrocht yn Israel. Se is in ôfstudearre fan it International Centre of Photography's General Studies Program. Ben-Sion is de ûntfanger fan ferskate subsydzjes en prizen, meast resint fan de Puffin Foundation en fan NoMAA, en har wurk is tentoansteld yn 'e Feriene Steaten en yn Europa. Se hat twa monografyen fan har wurk publisearre. Se wennet yn Washington Heights mei har man, en harren twillingjonges.
Artist syn ferklearring: Peter Boel: www.peterbulow.com
Myn mem as bern, hie ûnderdûkt west tidens de Holocaust. Troch de jierren hinne, har ûnderfining, of wat ik my foarstelde dat it har ûnderfining west hie, hat in grutte ynfloed op my hân. Dizze ynfloed wurdt reflektearre sawol yn myn persoanlik as yn myn artistike libben. Ik bin berne yn Yndia, wenne as jong bern yn Berlyn en emigrearre nei de FS mei myn âlden op leeftyd 8. Ik haw in Masters in Fine Arts yn byldhoukeunst. Ik bin ek de ûntfanger fan in subsydzje wêrmei't ik in beheind oantal brûnzen boarstbylden kin meitsje fan oerlibbenen fan 'e Holocaust. Lit my asjebleaft witte as jo ynteressearre binne om diel te nimmen oan dit projekt.
Artist syn ferklearring :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Myn lichem fan wurk wjerspegelet myn reis út Houston, TX - wêr't ik bin berne en grutbrocht - nei New York - wêr, bleatsteld oan syn etnyske, kulturele en sosjaal-ekonomyske ferskaat en syn unike sicht op ymmigranten– Ik fûn in fernijd respekt foar elkenien syn kultuer. Ik haw in learling by goed fêstige fotografen, reizge de wrâld wiidweidich en wurke gear mei in protte top professionals op it fjild. Sûnt jannewaris, 2006, myn karriêre as ûnôfhinklike fotograaf is in proses wurden om persoanlike fotografyprojekten oan te nimmen dy't fuortkomme út myn eigen begryp fan 'e manier wêrop wy de wrâld diele en ús kreativiteit as gehiel oefenje.
