Nyob rau hauv peb cov kev txhaj tshuaj nrog peb “Nrog ib tug neeg nyob hauv Caring” Qhov kev pab cuam nyiaj los ntawm lub UJA-Federation of New York, Tus Y yuav feature sib tham los ntawm rau lub zos survivors kom to taub txhua tus neeg zaj dabneeg. Cov kev sib tham no yuav raug showcased ntawm lub Hebrew Tabernacle gallery “Muaj ib lub sij hawm ua tsov ua rog thiab tshaj ntawd: Portraits ntawm Spirited Holocaust Survivors”. Lub gallery yuav qhib rau hnub Friday kaum ib hlis 8.
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.
nyob rau hauv 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. Piv txwv, 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 xyoo. 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 Xyoos.
Qhov kev sib tham no yog ua los ntawm Halley Goldberg ntawm tus Y nrog ib tug neeg nyob caring teg num thiab belongs rau lub YM&YWHA ntawm Washington Heights thiab Inwood. Siv cov khoom no tsis sau ntawv tso cai los ntawm ob lub Y thiab lub interviewee yog nruj me ntsis txwv. Xyuas kom paub ntxiv txog cov neeg uas nrog ib tug neeg nyob hauv Caring program ntawm no: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebrew Tabernacle tus Armin thiab Estelle kub tis Gallerytxaus siab rau kev koom tes nrogntxawg&YWHA ntawm Washington Heights thiab Inwoodcaw koj tuaj caw pebKaum ib hlis/hlis ntuj nqeg, 2013 Exhibit“Muaj ib lub sij hawm ua tsov ua rog thiab tshaj ntawd: Portraits ntawm Spirited Holocaust Survivors” Nrog cov duab thiab sculpture los ntawm: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW THIAB ROJ RODRIGUEZ. Conjunction nrog ib qhov kev pab tshwj xeeb tshwj xeeb hauv ncontawm qhov75Th Anniversary ntawm Kristallnacht-hmo ntawm Broken iavCov kev pab thiab artist qhib txais tos, Hnub Tsib, Kaum ib hlis 8, 2013 7:30 .m.
Ib tsab ntawv los ntawm cov Y : ” Xyoo lawm lub Washington Heights/Inwood Y lawm, thiab tseem yuav tau, Ib tug tsis tau rau cov neeg nrhiav qhov chaw nkaum, hwm thiab to taub. Muaj coob tus uas nkag mus rau hauv peb lub qhov rooj thiab koom rau hauv peb cov kev pab cuam tau nyob ntawm kev raug mob thiab kev ntxhov siab uas peb tsis tau pib xav txog tej yam. Ib txhia, leej twg yuav yog ib feem ntawm daim ntawv tso cai no, Ib tug zoo li no ntshai heev tuaj yuav tsum paub tias lub ntiaj teb no tsuas ua "The Holocaust" – Lub systematic tua neeg ntawm rau (6) lab (million) tus neeg Yudais ntawm cov teb chaws Europe.
Peb thaum lub Y nco ntsoov yav tas los, hwm cov uas nyob rau lub sij hawm ntawd, thiab tiv thaiv qhov tseeb rau yav tom ntej tiam tom ntej. Rau lub sake ntawm peb tus kheej thiab peb cov me nyuam, Peb yuav tsum kis tau cov dab neeg uas muaj tej cov evils ntawm tsov rog. Muaj cov tshooj lus yuav tsum kawm rau lub neej yav tom ntej. Cov kev sib tham no muab teev los ntawm Halley Goldberg, Ib tug "Partners in Caring" program supervisor. Qhov kev pab cuam no tseem ceeb heev yog tau los ntawm ib tug dav nyiaj pab los ntawm lub UJA-Federation ntawm New York, Tsim los txhim khu kev sib raug zoo nrog synagogues nyob Washington Heights thiab Inwood. “
Peb ob leeg kos duab exhibit nta portraits thiab sib tham ntawm survivors ntawm lub Holocaust, Hana Eisner, Charlie thiab Lilli Friedman, Pearl Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel thiab Ruth Wertheimer, Cov Kwvernacle, Ib lub koom txoos Yudais uas muaj cov Yudai uas nyob thawj 100 xyoo khiav mus rau Tebchaws Meskas thiab muaj hmoo txaus los rau Tebchaws Asmesliskas, nkaus hauv lub caij 1930. Ntxiv rau peb yuav tau honor Holocaust survivor Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- Niam ntawm peb artist Peter Bulow thiab WWII survivor Yan Neznanskiy – leej txiv ntawm tus Y Chief Program Officer, Victoria Neznansky.
Ib tshwj xeeb Sabbath Service, hais lus, Nco txog lub 75th Anniversary ntawm Kristallnacht (Hmo ntuj tawg lawm iav) precedes cov lus qhib ntawm lub kub Gallery/Y exhibit:Cov kev pab pib sai sai thaum 7:30 pm. Caw tag nrho caw tuaj koom.
Rau gallery qhib teev los yog xav paub ntxiv thov hu rau synagogue ntawm212-568-8304 los yog saibhttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgArtist cov nqe lus: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion yug hauv Minneapolis, MN thiab tsa ceg hauv ua Ixayees. Nws yog ib tug kawm tiav ntawm lub International Center of Photography General kev tshawb fawb Program. Ben-Zion yog tus neeg tau txais kev pab ntau yam nyiaj pab thiab txeeb, Feem ntau tsis ntev los no los ntawm lub Puffin Foundation thiab ntawm NoMAA, Thiab nws ua hauj lwm muaj tau exhibited nyob hauv lub teb chaws As Mes Lis Kas thiab nyob teb chaws Europe. Nws tau luam tawm ob monographs ntawm nws ua hauj lwm. Nws nyob washington Heights nrog nws tus txiv, thiab lawv tus tub ntxaib.
Artist cov nqe lus: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Kuv niam ua ib tug me nyuam, Yuav tsum tau nkaum thaum lub Holocaust. tau ntau xyoo, nws kev, Los yog dab tsi kuv imagined kom tau nws kev, Muaj ib tug cawv loj rau kuv. No cawv no reflected ob leeg nyob rau hauv kuv tus kheej thiab nyob rau hauv kuv lub neej artistic lub neej. Kuv yug hauv khej, Nyob ua ib tug me nyuam me nyob Berlin thiab emigrated rau Teb Chaws Asmeskas nrog kuv niam thiab txiv thaum muaj hnub nyoog 8. Kuv muaj ib masters hauv fine Arts hauv sculpture. Kuv kuj yog tus neeg tau txais kev pab ntawm ib qhov nyiaj pab uas yuav pub kuv ua ib tug xov tooj ntawm bronze busts ntawm Holocaust survivors. Thov qhia rau kuv paub yog hais tias koj xav ua ib feem ntawm qhov project no.
Artist cov nqe lus :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Kuv lub cev ua hauj lwm reflects kuv lus los ntawm Houston, TX – qhov twg kuv yug thiab tsa ceg – rau New York – qhov twg, raug nws haiv neeg, Kev cai thiab socioeconomic ntau haiv neeg lus thiab nws pom rau cov neeg tsiv teb– Kuv nrhiav tau ib tug tshiaj respect rau sawv daws nyuas. Kuv twb apprenticed nrog cov kws yees duab zoo tsim los pab cov kws yees duab, Mus ncig teb chaws kim heev thiab collaborated nrog ntau sab saum toj professionals nyob hauv daim teb. Txij thaum lub ib hlis ntuj, 2006, Kuv hauj lwm raws li ib tug kws yees duab ywj siab kuj yog ib txoj kev noj rau koj tus kheej photography tej yaam num uas mam li tawm hauv kuv tus kheej to taub txog qhov uas peb muab lub ntiaj teb thiab ce peb creativity ua ib tug lej.
