Ngokudibana kwethu “Amaqabane ekuKhathaleni” Inkqubo exhaswa ngemali yi-UJA-Federation yaseNew York, i-Y iya kuba nodliwano-ndlebe oluvela kumaxhoba amathandathu asekuhlaleni ukuze baqonde ngcono ibali lomntu ngamnye. Olu dliwano-ndlebe luya kuboniswa kwigalari yeTabernacle yesiHebhere “Bawo wam IQhawe: Bawo wam IQhawe”. Bawo wam IQhawe.
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(Umfanekiso oqingqiweyo nguPeter 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, umakhulu, 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.
Kwi 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 iminyaka ubudala. 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 iminyaka.
Olu dliwano-ndlebe lwenziwe nguHalley Goldberg we-Y's Partners in Caring initiative kwaye yeye-YM.&I-YWHA yaseWashington Heights kunye ne-Inwood. Ukusetyenziswa kwesi sixhobo ngaphandle kwemvume ebhaliweyo evela kubo bobabini u-Y kunye nodliwano-ndlebe akuvumelekanga ngokungqongqo. Fumana ulwazi oluthe kratya malunga neNkqubo ye-Partner in Caring apha: http://ywashhts.org/partners-caring-0
Umnquba wamaHebhere Armin kunye Estelle Gold Wing Galleryngentsebenziswano nebhongo kunyeYM&I-YWHA yaseWashington Heights kunye ne-Inwoodukumema ukuba wethuNovemba/Disemba, 2013 Bonisa“Bawo wam IQhawe: Bawo wam IQhawe” ngeefoto kunye nemifanekiso eqingqiweyo: YAEL BEN-ZION, UPETER BULOW kunye noROJ RODRIGUEZ. Ngokubambisana neNkonzo ekhethekileyo kwimemoriye75Isikhumbuzo seKristallnacht -ubusuku beglasi ephukileyoIinkonzo kunye noKwamkelwa kokuVulelwa koMculi, uLwesihlanu, Ngomhla we-8 kaNovemba, 2013 7:30 pm.
Ingxelo evela kuY : ” Kangangamashumi eminyaka iWashington Heights/Inwood Y ibekho, kwaye iyaqhubeka ukuba, ulikhusi kwabo bafuna indawo yokuzimela, intlonipho nokuqonda. Abaninzi abangena kwiingcango zethu kwaye bathathe inxaxheba kwiinkqubo zethu baye baphila kwiimvavanyo kunye neembandezelo esingenako nokuzicingela.. Kwabanye, ngubani oza kuba yinxalenye yalo mboniso, Enye into eyoyikeka ngolo hlobo iye yaziwa ehlabathini ngokubanzi ngokuthi “KuBulawa Kwabantu Ngenkohlakalo” – ukubulawa ngokucwangcisiweyo kwamaYuda azizigidi ezithandathu aseYurophu.
Thina kwaY sikhumbula ixesha elidlulileyo, bahlonele abo baphilayo nabangasekhoyo ngelo xesha, uze uyilondolozele izizukulwana ezizayo. Ngenxa yethu nabantwana bethu, kufuneka sidlulise amabali abo baye bafumana ububi bemfazwe. Kukho izifundo ekufuneka zifundwe kwixesha elizayo. Udliwano-ndlebe lubhalwe nguHalley Goldberg, umlawuli wenkqubo “yaMaqabane eKhathalelo”. Le nkqubo ibalulekileyo yenzeke ngenkxaso yesisa evela kwi-UJA-Federation yaseNew York, yenzelwe ukomeleza ubudlelwane nezindlu zesikhungu eWashington Heights nase-Inwood. “
Umboniso wethu odibeneyo wobugcisa ubonisa imifanekiso kunye nodliwano-ndlebe lwabasindileyo kwiNkcazo, UHana Eisner, UCharlie kunye noLilli Friedman, Pearl Rosenzveig, UFredy Seidel kunye noRuth Wertheimer, bonke bengamalungu omnquba wamaHebhere, ibandla lamaYuda ukuba amaYuda amaninzi German ababaleka amaNazi kunye nethamsanqa ngokwaneleyo ukuba eze eMelika, wajoyina ekupheleni kweminyaka yee-1930. Ukongeza, siya kunika imbeko owasinda kwiHolocaust uGizelle Schwartz Bulow- Umama wegcisa lethu uPeter Bulow kunye nowasinda kwiWWII uYan Neznanskiy-utata weGosa eliyiNtloko leNkqubo yeY, kubhiyozelwa uSuku lweNkululeko.
Inkonzo yeSabatha ekhethekileyo, nezithethi, kwisikhumbuzo seMinyaka engama-75 kaKristallnacht (Ubusuku beglasi eyaphukileyo) kwandule ukuvulwa komboniso weGold Gallery/Y:Iinkonzo ziqala ngokukhawuleza ngo-7:30 emva kwemini. Bonke bayamenywa ukuba babekho.
Kwigalari yeeyure zokuvula okanye ngolwazi oluthe kratya nceda ufowunele indlu yesikhungu ku212-568-8304 okanye ubonehttp://www.hebrewtabernacle.orgIngxelo yoMculi: Yael Ben-Zionwww.yaelbenzion.comUYael Ben-Zion wazalelwa eMinneapolis, MN kwaye wakhulela kwaSirayeli. Uthweswe isidanga kwiZiko leZizwe ngezizwe leNkqubo yeZifundo Jikelele zeFoto. UBen-Zion nguye ofumana izibonelelo ezahlukeneyo kunye namabhaso, kutsha nje usuka kwiPuffin Foundation nakwiNoMAA, kwaye umsebenzi wakhe uye waboniswa eUnited States naseYurophu. Upapashe iimonographs ezimbini zomsebenzi wakhe. Uhlala eWashington Heights nomyeni wakhe, namawele abo.
Ingxelo yoMculi: UPeter Bulow: www.peterbulow.com
Umama wam njengomntwana, zazizimele ngexesha lokuBulawa Kwabantu Ngenkohlakalo. Emveni kweminyaka, amava akhe, okanye into ebendiyicingela ukuba ibingamava akhe, ibe nempembelelo enkulu kum. Le mpembelelo ibonakala kubomi bam bomntu kunye nakubomi bam bobugcisa. Ndazalelwa eIndiya, ndahlala njengomntwana omncinci eBerlin kwaye wafudukela e-US nabazali bam ngeminyaka 8. NdineeMasters kuBugcisa obuNcinci kwimizobo eqingqiweyo. Ndikwangumamkeli wesibonelelo esiya kundivumela ukuba ndenze inani eliqingqiweyo leebhutsi zobhedu zabasindi kwiHolocaust. Nceda undazise ukuba unomdla wokuba yinxalenye yale projekthi.
Ingxelo yoMculi :URoj Rodriguez: www.rojrodriguez.com
Umzimba wam womsebenzi ubonisa uhambo lwam olusuka eHouston, TX - apho ndazalelwa ndakhulela khona - eNew York - apho, evezwe kubuhlanga bayo, iyantlukwano yenkcubeko nentlalo-ntle kunye nembono yayo eyodwa kubaphambukeli– Ndifumene intlonipho ehlaziyiweyo kwinkcubeko yomntu wonke. Ndifunde kunye nabafoti abaziwayo, bahamba behlabathi kakhulu kwaye basebenzisane neengcali ezininzi eziphezulu ebaleni. Ukususela ngoJanuwari, 2006, Umsebenzi wam wokuba ngumfoti ozimeleyo ube yinkqubo yokuthatha iiprojekthi zokufota zobuqu ezivela kokwam ukuqonda ngendlela esabelana ngayo ngehlabathi kunye nokusebenzisa ubuchule bethu bokuyila ngokubanzi.
