I samband med vår “Partners in Caring” program finansierat av UJA-Federation of New York, Y kommer att innehålla intervjuer från sex lokala överlevande för att bättre förstå varje individs berättelse. Dessa intervjuer kommer att visas upp i det hebreiska tabernaklet “Uppleva en tid av krig och framåt: Porträtt av spirituella överlevande från förintelsen”. Galleriet öppnar fredagen den 8 november.
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.
I 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 år gammal. 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 år.
Den här intervjun genomfördes av Halley Goldberg från Y's Partners in Caring-initiativet och tillhör YM&YWHA i Washington Heights och Inwood. Användning av detta material utan skriftligt medgivande från både Y och intervjupersonen är strängt förbjudet. Läs mer om Partners in Caring-programmet här: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Hebreiska Tabernaklet Armin och Estelle Gold Wing Galleryi stolt samarbete medDe m&YWHA i Washington Heights och Inwoodbjuder in till vårNovember december, 2013 Utställning“Uppleva en tid av krig och framåt: Porträtt av spirituella överlevande från förintelsen” med fotografier och skulptur av: YAEL BEN-ZION, PETER BULOW och ROJ RODRIGUEZ. I samband med en speciell minnesgudstjänstav75årsdagen av Kristallnatten - Natten av krossat glasTjänster och konstnärsöppningsmottagning, fredag, 8 november, 2013 7:30 p.m.
Ett uttalande från Y : ” I decennier har Washington Heights/Inwood Y varit det, och fortsätter att vara, en fristad för dem som söker skydd, respekt och förståelse. Många som går in genom våra dörrar och deltar i våra program har genomlevt prövningar och vedermödor som vi inte ens kan börja föreställa oss. För vissa, som kommer att vara en del av denna utställning, en sådan fasa har kommit att bli känd för världen helt enkelt som "Förintelsen" – det systematiska mordet på sex miljoner judar i Europa.
Vi på Y minns det förflutna, hedra dem som levde och dog under den tiden, och skydda sanningen för framtida generationer. För oss själva och våra barns skull, vi måste förmedla berättelserna om dem som har upplevt krigets ondska. Det finns lärdomar att dra för framtiden. Intervjuerna är dokumenterade av Halley Goldberg, en handledare för programmet "Partners in Caring".. Detta viktiga program möjliggjordes genom ett generöst anslag från UJA-Federation of New York, utformad för att förbättra relationerna med synagogor i Washington Heights och Inwood. “
Vår gemensamma konstutställning innehåller porträtt och intervjuer av överlevande från Förintelsen, Hannah Eisner, Charlie och Lilli Friedman, Pärla Rosenzveig, Fredy Seidel och Ruth Wertheimer, som alla är medlemmar av det hebreiska tabernaklet, en judisk församling där många tyska judar flyr från nazisterna och har turen att komma till Amerika, gick med i slutet av 1930-talet. Dessutom kommer vi också att hedra förintelsens överlevande Gizelle Schwartz Bulow- mamma till vår artist Peter Bulow och överlevande från andra världskriget Yan Neznanskiy – far till Y:s Chief Program Officer, Victoria Neznansky.
En speciell sabbatsgudstjänst, med högtalare, till minne av 75-årsdagen av Kristallnatten (Natten av krossat glas) före öppningen av Guldgalleriet/Y-utställningen:Gudstjänsterna börjar omgående kl 7:30 kl. Alla är välkomna att delta.
För galleriets öppettider eller för ytterligare information ring synagogan på kl212-568-8304 eller sehttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgKonstnärens uttalande: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comYael Ben-Zion föddes i Minneapolis, MN och uppvuxen i Israel. Hon är utexaminerad från International Center of Photography's General Studies Program. Ben-Zion är mottagare av olika bidrag och utmärkelser, senast från Puffin Foundation och från NoMAA, och hennes verk har ställts ut i USA och i Europa. Hon har publicerat två monografier av sitt arbete. Hon bor i Washington Heights med sin man, och deras tvillingpojkar.
Konstnärens uttalande: Peter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Min mamma som barn, hade gömt sig under förintelsen. Över åren, hennes erfarenhet, eller vad jag föreställde mig var hennes upplevelse, har haft ett stort inflytande på mig. Detta inflytande återspeglas både i mitt personliga och i mitt konstnärliga liv. Jag är född i Indien, bodde som litet barn i Berlin och emigrerade till USA med mina föräldrar vid ålder 8. Jag har en magisterexamen i konst i skulptur. Jag är också mottagare av ett bidrag som gör att jag kan göra ett begränsat antal bronsbyster av överlevande från Förintelsen. Vänligen meddela mig om du är intresserad av att vara en del av detta projekt.
Konstnärens uttalande :Roj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Mitt arbete speglar min resa från Houston, TX – där jag är född och uppvuxen – till New York – där, utsatt för sin etniska, kulturell och socioekonomisk mångfald och dess unika syn på invandrare– Jag hittade en förnyad respekt för allas kultur. Jag har gått i lärling hos väletablerade fotografer, reste världen runt mycket och samarbetade med många toppproffs inom området. Sedan januari, 2006, min karriär som oberoende fotograf har blivit en process där jag tar mig an personliga fotoprojekt som kommer från min egen förståelse för hur vi delar världen och utövar vår kreativitet som helhet.
