In collaborazione con il ns “Partner nella cura” programma finanziato dalla UJA-Federation of New York, la Y conterrà le interviste di sei sopravvissuti locali per comprendere meglio la storia di ogni individuo. Queste interviste saranno presentate nella galleria del Tabernacolo Ebraico “Vivere un tempo di guerra e oltre: Ritratti di vivaci sopravvissuti all'Olocausto”. La galleria aprirà venerdì 8 novembre.
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, nonna, 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.
In 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. For example, 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.”
Eventually, 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 Anni. 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 anni.
Questa intervista è stata condotta da Halley Goldberg dell'iniziativa Y's Partners in Caring e appartiene a YM&YWHA di Washington Heights e Inwood. L'uso di questo materiale senza il consenso scritto di Y e dell'intervistato è severamente vietato. Scopri di più sul programma Partners in Caring qui: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Tabernacolo Ebraico Galleria Armin ed Estelle Gold Wingin orgogliosa collaborazione conil YM&YWHA di Washington Heights e Inwoodti invita al nostroNovembre dicembre, 2013 Mostra“Vivere un tempo di guerra e oltre: Ritratti di vivaci sopravvissuti all'Olocausto” con fotografie e sculture di: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW e ROJ RODRIGUEZ. In abbinamento ad uno speciale Servizio in memoriadel75esimo anniversario della Kristallnacht - la notte dei vetri rottiServizi e ricevimento di apertura dell'artista, Venerdì, 8 novembre, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Una dichiarazione di Y : ” Per decenni il Washington Heights/Inwood Y è stato, e continua ad esserlo, un rifugio per chi cerca rifugio, rispetto e comprensione. Molti di coloro che entrano dalle nostre porte e partecipano ai nostri programmi hanno vissuto prove e tribolazioni che non possiamo nemmeno immaginare. Per alcuni, che faranno parte di questa mostra, uno di questi orrori è diventato noto al mondo semplicemente come "L'Olocausto" – l'uccisione sistematica di sei milioni di ebrei d'Europa.
Noi della Y ricordiamo il passato, onora coloro che vissero e morirono in quel periodo, e salvaguardare la verità per le generazioni future. Per il bene nostro e dei nostri figli, dobbiamo tramandare le storie di coloro che hanno sperimentato i mali della guerra. Ci sono lezioni da imparare per il futuro. Le interviste sono documentate da Halley Goldberg, un supervisore del programma "Partners in Caring".. Questo programma vitale è stato reso possibile grazie a una generosa sovvenzione della UJA-Federation of New York, progettato per migliorare i rapporti con le sinagoghe di Washington Heights e Inwood. “
La nostra mostra d'arte congiunta presenta ritratti e interviste di sopravvissuti all'Olocausto, Hanna Eisner, Charlie e Lilli Friedmann, Perla Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel e Ruth Wertheimer, tutti membri del Tabernacolo Ebraico, una congregazione ebraica che molti ebrei tedeschi fuggono dai nazisti e abbastanza fortunati da venire in America, aderito alla fine degli anni '30. Inoltre onoreremo anche la sopravvissuta all'Olocausto Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- madre del nostro artista Peter Bulow e sopravvissuto alla seconda guerra mondiale Yan Neznanskiy – padre del responsabile del programma di Y, Vittoria Neznansky.
Un servizio speciale per il sabato, con altoparlanti, in ricordo del 75° Anniversario della Notte dei Cristalli (la notte dei vetri rotti) precede l'apertura della mostra Gold Gallery/Y:I servizi iniziano puntualmente alle 7:30 pm. Tutti sono invitati a partecipare.
Per gli orari di apertura della galleria o per ulteriori informazioni si prega di chiamare la sinagoga al n212-568-8304 o vederehttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgDichiarazione dell'artista: Yael Ben Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben Zion è nata a Minneapolis, MN e cresciuto in Israele. Si è laureata al programma di studi generali del Centro internazionale di fotografia. Ben-Zion ha ricevuto varie sovvenzioni e premi, più recentemente dalla Puffin Foundation e dal NoMAA, e il suo lavoro è stato esposto negli Stati Uniti e in Europa. Ha pubblicato due monografie del suo lavoro. Vive a Washington Heights con suo marito, e i loro gemelli.
Dichiarazione dell'artista: Peter Blow: www.peterbulow.com
Mia madre da bambina, era stato nascosto durante l'Olocausto. Negli anni, la sua esperienza, o quella che immaginavo fosse stata la sua esperienza, ha avuto una grande influenza su di me. Questa influenza si riflette sia nella mia vita personale che in quella artistica. Sono nato in India, vissuto da bambino a Berlino ed emigrato negli Stati Uniti con i miei genitori all'età 8. Ho un Master in Belle Arti in scultura. Sono anche destinatario di una borsa di studio che mi consentirà di realizzare un numero limitato di busti in bronzo di sopravvissuti all'Olocausto. Per favore fatemi sapere se siete interessati a far parte di questo progetto.
Dichiarazione dell'artista :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Il mio corpo di lavoro riflette il mio viaggio da Houston, TX – dove sono nato e cresciuto – a New York – dove, esposto alla sua etnia, diversità culturale e socioeconomica e la sua visione unica degli immigrati– Ho trovato un rinnovato rispetto per la cultura di tutti. Ho lavorato come apprendista con fotografi affermati, ha viaggiato molto per il mondo e ha collaborato con molti dei migliori professionisti del settore. Da gennaio, 2006, la mia carriera di fotografo indipendente è diventata un processo di assunzione di progetti fotografici personali che emergono dalla mia comprensione del modo in cui condividiamo il mondo ed esercitiamo la nostra creatività nel suo insieme.
