>> Today is Monday, August 29, 2022.
My name is Adina Langer,
and I'm the curator of the Museum of History and
Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University.
And I'm here with Sarah Popowski who will be recording
a legacy series interview
with us in memory of her parents,
Paula Kornblum Popowski and Henry Popowski.
>> Correct.
>> So let's start if you
could please state your full name.
>> Sarah Sylvia Popowski.
And do you agree to this interview?
>> I do.
>> Wonderful. Can you
please share where and when you were born?
>> I was born on August 19th,
1952 in Charleston, South Carolina.
> And before we talk about your childhood
and eventually your life here in Georgia a little bit,
we're going to go back and focus on
your parents stories, beginning with your mother.
So can you please state your mother's full name?
Paula Kornblum Popowski.
>> And where and when was she born?
>> She was born on January 20th,
1923 in Kaluszyn Poland.
>> And can you spell
the name of that town just we have that?
>> K-A-L-U-S-Z-Y-N.
>> And what kind of a town was Kaluszyn?
>> It was a small town about 35 miles east of Warsaw,
very heavily Jewish in
addition to Catholics living there as well.
Very much a community there
from what my parents shared with me.
>> And the Jewish population,
the Catholic population, did they
mix with each other? Were they neighbors?
>> They were neighbors,
but they really did not interact on a regular basis.
For instance, my mother did
not go to school with Catholic children.
And one of the reasons that she told us
is because they taught religion in schools.
So the Jewish children went
separately from the non
Jewish that were primarily Catholic.
>> So what was your mother's
neighborhood like in Kaluszyn?
>> They lived on the property of the business,
which was a flour mill.
And lived there with her family,
and I know that her grandmother,
last name, Rosa,
R-O-S-A lived there with them as well.
And so I think they they had
a neighborhood that they thought would be just like
any neighborhood that to which you would be accustomed.
>> And was this an old community,
had there been Jews living in
Kaluszyn for a very long time?
>> I believe so. I don't know in terms of length,
but I do believe that there were Jews
there for quite a period of time.
My mother's mother,
my maternal grandmother was from Kaluszyn.
It's pronounced both ways.
>> Sure. And you
mentioned that they went to a Jewish school.
What role did Judaism play in their lives generally?
>> They went to a school. I'm not sure if
it was Jewish school,
but where the religion was taught in the school.
I think the children went to the same school,
but they went the religious piece.
That's how I understood it.
I always say there's
probably much more that I don't know than what I do know.
But in terms of Judaism,
Judaism was very much a hallmark in the family.
My mother always used to say,
we didn't need vacations because we had a vacation
every Chavez because they
really they shut down the business shut down.
They observed Chavez though,
I would say that they were orthodox Jews
as we know Orthodox Jews today.
>> And did they go to Synagogue?
Did they have a synagogue in town?
>> They had they had a synagogue to my knowledge,
but I think that a lot of
the Judaism that they practiced was in the home.
>> And do you know anything about their politics?
Were they involved in
any ionist organizations or anything like that?
>> I just listened to my mother's video recently,
and she did say her mother was a ionist and she
participated in bazaars and such for fundraising of that.
>> Interesting. And so you mentioned that
the family owned a flour mill. Tell me more about that?
>> It was from on my mother's side.
It's the flour mill
has been in the family for quite some time.
I don't know the length of time,
but it served the surround Kaluszyn in
the surrounding areas in terms of
providing the wheat for the community.
My maternal grandfather was originally from Warsaw,
but when he met my grandmother,
they he moved to
Kaluszyn and started to work in the mill.
I usually don't refer to them as my grandparents,
because I never knew them.
I never knew either grant set of grandparents.
>> So this mill,
did it have other employees too,
or was it mostly the family?
>> No, I had other employees,
and they were non Jewish employees.
>> And was it the place
where farmers from around would bring
their unmilled wheat and they would mill it into flour?
>> I don't know that.
>> Just curious. So you
mentioned that your mother went to school,
what was her education like?
>> She went to school,
I think through the eighth grade
and did not pursue beyond that,
because at that age to continue education,
she would have to leave leave home.
Her brother did. She had
an older brother and a younger sister.
And so I know the brother did and I think I heard
in another video testimony
she gave that her sister didn't.
So one thing I will never know
the answer to is if that was the case,
why didn't she go? And I don't know that.
>> Do you know much about how they
would have learned about the news of the world,
they have a newspaper or anything like that?
>> They did have a newspaper.
They had a dashi paper,
they had got every day.
And they also had connections with people in
other towns and so forth.
So they had a network of people that they knew
and newspaper that kept
them abreast of what was going on.
>> So do you think that they or
did you learn that they had a sense for
the fact that war was on
the horizon that there were tensions in Europe?
>> Yeah.
>> In 30s?
>> They knew.
>> Did they have plans or hopes or dreams for the future.
>> Interesting question.
The way I would answer that is that I think
the dreams they had would be to stay
together as a unit for as long as they can,
which ultimately did not happen.
And so that was
probably their dream in terms of when tensions began.
And they did that for as long as they could.
But I think really
these tensions not been there and
had there not been a World War 2,
you and I would not be sitting here together today.
>> So how did life change for
them when the German army invaded Poland?
>> Well, I think it started even
before that when Hitler came into power.
I think that things began to be more difficult.
It became more difficult to get medicine,
it became more difficult to
get the things that they needed for everyday life.
So that it really started before the war.
And I think the war
it went up exponentially after the war started.
>> So once their part
of Poland came under German occupation, is that right?
>> Uh-huh.
>> And what were some of
the first things that changed for them?
>> Well, one of the first things that changed is that,
at first they took them all out of
their home after the invasion.
Eventually, they let the women
go and they went back to their home,
they held them in an area,
I think is maybe in the school where she attended.
I'm not positive about that point.
And eventually they let the men go.
And so that was something that was,
traumatic, if you will,
very traumatic for them.
And then became much more difficult, as I said,
to get the things
that they needed on a day-to-day basis such as
medicine became more difficult to be
observant Jews in terms of
people gathering together to have a minion,
for instance, those things became
much more challenging as
time went on after the war began.
>> And did they officially create a ghetto in collision?
>> I don't know the answer to that.
They may have, but I know that
they certainly had restrictions.
But I do remember my mother mentioning that
they had non-Jewish neighbors.
So I don't know that they particularly enclosed the town.
>> And did they know people in Warsaw and I
know Warsaw obviously has
a very large ghetto that's created?
>> Correct.
>> Did they have a relationship with
anyone who ended up there?
>> They did because my
maternal grandfather was from Warsaw.
And so they did have connections in Warsaw.
>> So as this tightening of
restrictions and their lives begin to change,
were they able to maintain
their business for a period of time?
>> Well, when the war broke out,
the Germans took over the business.
And so the Germans were
on site actually running the business,
so effectively took the business away from them,
even though they were still living on the property,
they were not running the business.
>> So there were these three children in the family,
how long were they able to stay together?
When did they end up being separated from each other?
>> In 1942, when the final solution came in to be.
And this is when they were hearing from the other towns
surrounding them that they were taking the Jews out.
And the family said,
we're not going to go and they had built
a hiding place in the place where
they lived on the same property as the flower mill.
And so they started making
preparations knowing that that was going to occur.
During that time, my mother
had a friend last name Dombojvic.
I'm not sure of the spelling,
but I'm going to guess at D-O-M-B-O-J-V-I-C,
but that could clearly be wrong,
but who came to the house one time with her parents and
they asked my mother and
her family if they would keep
a coat for them and they of course we would.
And they realized when they took it how heavy it was.
And what they realized is that there were
coins sewn into the coat.
And so my mother and her family got an idea.
And so they had some coins from
the First World War this are necklace that had value.
And at this point, I'll bring out to say,
because there was a few coins left after my parents.
And if you could get close,
this is one of the coins that she had left from the war.
There were approximately 100 coins
hidden in the yard of the property.
And they had other coins and they took
the other coins and sewed them
into the dresses and they
put and they put them into the soles of their shoes.
So there was probably 130 coins in total,
if you take the ones that were the dresses and
soles of the shoes plus what was buried in the yard.
So they got the idea from mom's friend, Molly Dombojvic.
And so after a period of time,
they came back to get the coat.
And and her friend says to her,
I've got this opportunity to go to a labor camp.
She says, Why don't you come with me?
And her father was home at that time,
and he said, it's come to a point.
I don't know what to tell you to do.
>> And what kind of a labor camp,
what would make this I guess, attractive?
>> Means to survive. And so
that they wouldn't be liquidated
when the Germans came in.
So that would be the advantage and
my aunt was making
arrangements to go to another labor camp.
And when we talk about these,
we're not talking about long distances.
For instance, the camp where my mother
eventually went was only
about the equivalent of
about 2 miles or so from collision.
So we're not talking about hundreds of miles.
And so when her friend said, Why don't you come with me?
She said, I don't know she's 19 years old at the time.
She didn't know what to do.
Her father is there and he said,
you know, there's come to a point.
I don't know what to tell you to do.
Later, her mother comes in,
tells her mother that,
Molly says I should come and she says, "You go".
And she said,
she took her two coats, one's a lighter coat,
one's a heavier coat because this was September,
knowing that winter was coming,
took a sack and put up some bread and an apple.
And she went down to the depot where they
were gathering and there was a horse and buggy there.
Her friend was there and there were probably I think
eight to maybe a dozen other people there.
And when the person who she knew
who was coordinating the list,
he looks on the list and he said,
I don't see your name here.
My mother says, I'm not going back.
I see a space here between two names.
You put my name there.
And for whatever reason, he did.
And I say in these things that
these split-second decisions that are made.
These are not oh, well, this was just a bad decision.
These are life and death decisions.
>> So did she go alone or did her sister come too?
>> She went with her friend.
So she didn't go alone and there were other people,
I think, some of whom she
knew that she went to this camp,
and they also had connections
with some non-Jewish people who were helping them out
and they had that contact and my aunt had that contact as
well with those people
who were going to eventually get them out of the camp.
>> So what did your mother tell you about the camp?
>> It was hard labor.
She said that they were
digging ditches to plant potatoes.
They worked morning until night.
They gave very little maybe some very watery soup,
and I remember saying mildew bread.
So it wasn't enough
really sufficient feeding, if you will.
One story, I'll share with you that I
tell selectively about depending
on with whom I'm speaking,
is that there was a couple
because there were no children allowed in the camp.
And there was a couple there who had a child,
I think, maybe six or seven years old.
And the they were hiding the child.
And the people that were running
the camp. Found the child.
And they gathered everybody in
the camp and they
put the child in the middle of the camp.
And they said, to whom does this child belong?
And nobody would come forward.
They were scared because they knew
would know what the consequence was.
And, then she said that they became so sarcastic,
here's a young child, they shouldn't be separate.
I don't know if it was a boy or girl.
I want to say boy, but I'm not sure.
A child shouldn't be by him or herself,
come forward and the parents of this who
actual parents were hiding because they
didn't want the child wing to them.
And so the German said, Well,
nobody's going to claim this child,
so in front of the whole group, they shot the child.
And the parents couldn't react.
They could not react to, to witnessing
their own child being shot right before their eyes.
So I know that was one of the stories that stayed with
me in terms of an experience
in the camp that how brutal they were.
So it didn't have to be
an extermination camp for things like that to happen.
>> She was in this camp starting in September of '42,
how long did she stay in the camp?
>> I think it was probably
about a few months, maybe six weeks.
And then the people
that my maternal grandparents knew who helped,
the last name was Wozniak,
W-O-Z-N-I-A-K. She'd been in touch with my aunt,
somehow they made communications.
They didn't have cell phones or computers or anything,
but somehow they were able to have connections,
and the Wozniaks came one time and said, let's go,
and it was during the daylight,
and she says, no, I can't go,
they're going to find us.
So they made another arrangement to
come at night when everybody was asleep,
and just walk away.
So one of the Wozniaks came and helped her to leave.
>> And so there were no guards at the [inaudible].
>> Apparently not, and
I'm sure they selected an area for them to meet.
So however they did, they did it.
And a lot of that detail that escapes me.
>> So what was the plan
that these friends had for your mother?
>> So the plan is first to get them out,
and then they got them to Warsaw.
And in Warsaw, they
got them there and got them situated where they lived.
These were people who were literally
risking their lives to help.
So one of the things they helped did is they helped,
because people had to have papers to be
able to move around,
they had to have documents,
and my mother and aunt didn't have documents.
So they helped them to get false documents.
My mother went from Pola Kornblum to Apolonio Borkowska.
And if you want me to pull this up,
I've got a picture of that document.
I've got the actual document.
>> That would be a good thing to show.
>> So this is
the actual document that we had framed to preserve it.
And my mother is 19 years old here.
She told me that when this picture was taken,
it was taken by a female photographer, not Jewish.
And when my mother was starting to pose for,
she says, "Give me
a big smile like the world would end tomorrow."
And this, indeed, I believe is one of
the most beautiful pictures I have of my mother.
It shows Apolonio Borkowska,
and it shows her religion as being Catholic.
But this is the paper that she carried around with her,
like we carry around driver's licenses,
to make sure that she had a proper identification.
And you can see on the back
here that we preserved it so we can see the back,
and where she had a stamp in terms of
when she went from place to place.
You can also see up here where it has her fingerprints.
So this is a family heirloom now.
>> And this was something that
Wozniak family helped her to obtain?
>> Correct. During this period of time,
the Wozniaks also helped when one of them went
back to the flour mill
and got the coins that was in that box.
And so what my mother's parents did,
they had each child go out at night one by one,
and they said, from the house,
there's like three cobblestones,
and in between the cobblestones,
if you dig in there, that's
where you're going to find the box.
And so they told him.
So we went and got that.
And he was going to go home
and spend the night, and he said, "No,
I'm not going to do that," because he was afraid
his wife might know that he
had coins and might want some to help.
And he brought the coins to my mother and aunt,
so they were able to pay people during the course
of the war that helped them out tremendously.
>> So now they're in Warsaw with
their assumed identities and some resources,
what do they do next?
>> Eventually what they ended up
doing was going to Czestochowa.
The main reason is because they had family in Warsaw,
and they knew people in Warsaw,
so that if they were to be going out in the streets,
and they also had the ghetto in Warsaw,
and they were concerned that they might be recognized.
And they were also told that they had a good face,
and what that meant was you don't really look Jewish.
You can pass as not being Jewish.
So the Wozniaks or somebody
knew a priest down in Czestochowa and said,
you got to go down there and make connections with
him and see if he can help you out,
and that way they're going to the South
of Poland where they
don't know anybody. And that's what they did.
>> How did they get there?
>> Train.
>> And so they used their money to
buy tickets and this assumed identity card?
>> Yeah. Were there
people all along the way checking IDs?
>> I'm sure there were.
She didn't explicitly say that,
but I would assume that there were.
[inaudible], the tickets were.
They got the tickets as long
as they showed their identity.
>> So when they meet up with this priest
in Czestochowa, I pronounced that right?
Where do they end up living?
>> Well, they ended up at a home with nuns,
and they spent one night,
and then the nun came and said,
I'm nervous about this, I can't stay.
And then found another place.
And also during this time, they found work.
They found work in a glass factory
that was run by a man named Mr. Rylski,
played a very prominent role in their survival.
So they found another place with nuns,
and they stayed there
and then they started to go to work.
They'd get up in the morning,
they'd go to work, come back at night, and that was it.
>> And who in this town,
if anyone, knew their real identity?
>> The mother superior would know.
They didn't tell all the nuns.
And Mr. Rylski,
which is an interesting story on that about how he knew.
They stayed at the second place for a period of time,
and then one day they came back,
and then that nun became nervous,
people around the neighborhood are talking,
and you just can't stay here,
and so they went back.
And by this time, they knew that Mr.
Rylski knew that they were Jewish girls,
because they are wondering
during this time, does he know?
Does he not know?
And they were talking to him one day and he says,
you're under my watch now.
Later that day, they said to each other, he knows.
And after that,
they were talking to him one day and they said,
why are you doing this?
Why are you helping us?
And he says, you know why? I have two daughters.
And if they were in trouble or needed somebody,
I would want someone to help them.
As atrocious as the experience
that they were going through,
the silver lining is that there were
people that were willing to help.
And so it also shows,
maybe not to the same extent,
the goodness of people, and what they would do.
So they were staying in the second place,
one day they came home and
the next morning said, don't have a place.
So they get to work and they tell Mr. Rylski.
And he says, I know that the same priest
he may know of some other place.
And he says, I'm going to give you the day off,
go over there, talk to that priest.
Another home with nuns.
Some of them were serving the elderly.
Go to this other place and see if they will help you out.
And she went to that place,
talked to the mother superior, said,
look, we'll be straight
out with you, we're Jewish girls,
we have papers, we are working,
can you just help us by staying the night?
She did. They go to work next day and
they come back and they said, can we talk to you?
And she said, "Listen,
we are Jewish girls.
We're working, we are willing to give
you all the money that we
earn if you will let us stay here."
And the mother superior said,
"No, you're not going to give us all your money.
You're young girls, you're going to need some.
You will give me some money,
but you won't give it all to me."
And that's where they stayed until
the liberation in January of '45.
>> Do you know the name of this mother superior?
>> I don't. I can't remember her mentioning that name.
>> So you had told me that while they were working at
the glass factory that they had a close call,
can you tell me about what that was?
>> Well, I think people started talking in the factory.
There was some authorities
that came to the factory and questioned them,
and they questioned them about Catholicism.
And one thing about, they were living as
Catholics on the Polish side.
And so they went to church, they went to mass.
My mother said she knew the catechism
better than most Catholics did.
And so they were
practicing Catholicism during this point,
and the authorities came and were beginning
to ask them questions about Catholicism.
Apparently, they answered them
appropriately and showed their papers
so that they escaped that situation.
>> So during this time,
did they receive any word from home?
>> They did. They knew really before they got to
[inaudible] what happened to their parents.
They knew that when the trains came to
take the Jews out and they were
determined not to leave and they didn't,
but they were found in the hiding place and they were
taken out and held in
the school in Kaluszyn, where they attended school.
And they were eventually taken to
a field and shot in Kaluszyn.
So they never got to the camps
because they were killed before
because they tried to hide when they liquidated the town.
And so they had connections.
Also, they had heard from
the boyfriend of a cousin of theirs.
Because they had gone to Warsaw one time while they were
[inaudible] and she said
that he was the only person that knew where they were.
They gave him the dress, and he was really
the only person that knew where they were.
And so they kept things
very close to the vest about their whereabouts.
They didn't reach out to all family members and say,
"Hey, here we are."
>> Did they know what had happened to their brother?
>> The brother also was going on the trains and he jumped
the train and ended up being in
the partisans and he didn't survive.
He was killed about 4-6 months before the end of the war.
They had contact with him for a period of time,
but eventually lost contact with him.
>> So as they're going
through and working every day in this glass factory,
did they practice any Jewish ritual
in secret or anything like that?
>> Not to my knowledge. No. Because their mission
and their motive was to
survive and not to give
any indication of who they actually were.
>> So once, and the spring of '45 came,
did they have a sense that things were going
poorly for the Germans and that
the war might be over soon?
>> Yeah. It was really actually in January of 1945
when Russia invaded Poland,
and that they heard the bombing start and such,
and the glass factory
wasn't working for a period of time during that.
But during that time
when they realized that things are changing
in the head nun at the place where they
were living came to them and says, "You're free now."
But the question is free from what?
And there was someone else,
either a friend or relative,
who had somehow found out where they were
and after all this was taking place,
they've gone back to the glass factory and they admit
a secretary or somebody who was
doing at the factory said,
"The postman was here and they had a letter for you."
But he wouldn't leave it. So they came
back early the next day and waited for the postman.
And when the postman arrived, said,
"I don't have a letter with me."
So what they did is they went to
the post office and they waited
for every postman to come in until they found,
got the letter, and I don't know
the name of the person from whom that letter came.
I'd have to go back and see
if mom ever actually identified it,
and who was back in Kaluszyn,
said, "You know who would found out he'd survived?"
And then they ended up eventually going back to Kaluszyn.
They went by train,
they went by horse and buggy,
they went by foot,
and I think she said it took three days to go 200 miles.
>> And what did they find when they got there?
>> Not much. The flour mill was still standing,
but it was nationalized.
So that was gone and
that the town was just she said in rubble.
They didn't have any known survivors,
any of whom they knew at that point.
And then they found out that some friends had survived
and people that they knew and that
they ended up in Warsaw with them.
And so that's the first step of what happened.
>> So at this point,
did your mother tell you
what they were hoping to do next,
what they were looking to do?
>> Well, what they were hoping to do is
to reunite with any family and eventually go
to Palestine because there was
an aunt and uncle who had left
Europe prior to the war and somehow to make it there.
What they eventually did
is that when they saw that there was
really nothing there in Poland,
they smuggled into Germany
and ended up at a DP camp in [inaudible].
>> And did they
give their their correct identity
or their real identity
once they got to that camp? [OVERLAPPING]
>> From that point, I can't say I know that for a fact.
I'm going to assume that once
they got there and they knew they
were in a safe place,
and I think that's a word that my mother
used to describe when she got to the DP.
How'd you feel? Safe. And I know that she
said they were just existing even with the nuns,
they didn't have the robust meals
to which they are accustomed which she did when
she had one of the first
what we would consider a normal meal,
she got sick because her system was not used
to having that type of nourishment.
>> And this camp,
was it run by US soldiers or a different Allied soldiers?
>> I'm not sure.
>> What were her first impressions?
You said that she felt safe.
What did this camp look like?
Did she share anything?
>> I think there were small apartments.
I just think it was an enclosed area,
not enclosed by fenced there,
but it was just a community of where people were like
them were coming to gather and trying
to somehow rebuild their lives.
>> So what was life like in the camp?
What did they do? [OVERLAPPING]
>> In the DP camp? I think that they were trying
to find out what their next steps were, come to knew.
And also to you mentioned,
is that through their aunt in Israel.
There was also some distant relatives in
the United States that got word that they had
survived and somehow got
reached out to him and said, "Look.
If you want to come to the United States,
we will certainly help sponsor you to
come to the United States,"
which is eventually what happened.
>> So how did your mother then meet your father?
>> At the DP camp. They had a community, if you will,
and there are people who
were leading certain efforts
within the community and he was one of them.
As a matter of fact, my mother and aunt's whole plan
at the time was to go to Palestine,
and that's what they were doing.
And it was my father that said to them, "Look.
Also do the work that takes to get to the United States.
You could always decide where you want to go."
Because they had people that
would be willing to sponsor them.
And then eventually,
my mother and father started to date,
and they married in 1947.
>> Do you know what their wedding was like?
Did they tell you stories?
>> No. I just know that they got married.
>> And what was your father's name?
>> Henry Popowski.
>> And where was he born?
>> In Kaluszyn. He's in from the same hometown,
and they didn't know each other growing
up because there's an 11-year age difference.
They knew each other's families and my mother was friends
with some of his siblings, but not him.
And he left Kaluszyn when he was about 18.
So that would have made my mother, what, seven.
So they they would not have connected at that point.
>> How did he survive the war?
>> He was in the Polish Army,
and he was also in the Warsaw Ghetto,
and when they liquidated the Warsaw Ghetto,
he was moved from camp to camp.
He was liberated from Mauthausen,
and then ended up in the DP camp.
>> And did he have any other family members who survived?
>> He did. He was one of eight children,
and he and two brothers survived.
>> And did they end up in the SMDP camp together?
>> I think for a period of time,
yes and then the two brothers
ended up going to Palestine,
which eventually that territory eventually became Israel.
And so we have to
this Bay Family in Israel for that reason.
>> So did they share anything with you about what
the process of applying for
US visas and all of that was like for them?
>> Yes. They have to get some affidavits
and to be able to come to the United States.
And the Sucker Family,
which was a family in the United States in Charleston,
South Carolina, which is why they ended up in Charleston.
She said, "Once you get the affidavits and let us know
and we will make the arrangements
for them" So they had to get the affidavits.
My oldest brother was born in Germany in 1949,
and they had to wait until he
was six months old before they could come over.
So my aunt actually came over before they did.
>> And did anybody else help them?
They had this sponsored.
Were there any Jewish organizations.
>> I believe the joint had some involvement
in helping them to get.
>> And that's the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee?
>> Correct.
>> And what did they tell you about their journey?
What was their journey like to get to the US?
>> So they left in November of 1949.
It was on the General McCrae,
that was the name of the boat.
So my mother and my father,
my oldest brother, who was six months at the time,
and my mother's pregnant with my second brother.
And they said it was a two week boat trip
and that the women,
if they had small children,
the men and women couldn't stay together.
So all the women who had young
children stayed in one place
and so that my parents weren't together on the boat.
They would see each other, but they
didn't have the same quarters,
if you will, on the boat.
I'm sure they had a lot turbulence
and my mother was pregnant at the time.
So I'm sure that there was some rough times there,
but it was also a time of renewal because
they were rebuilding family.
They came over, as I mentioned,
it was a two week boat trip.
They came into New York Harbor.
They didn't come into Lesser,
but they did dock in New York,
and it was on the eve of Thanksgiving.
And they couldn't come off the boat because
the immigration officials were
not there to go through the processing.
So they had to stay on the boat on Thanksgiving Day.
They got a great turkey meal,
but they did not know the significance of
it because it's an American holiday and
what do they know from but they got
a great turkey meal on the boat.
And then the next day,
Joseph took her and his wife,
Rachel, who sponsored him.
Joseph was there with his daughter to meet them
and he jokingly said
when they first started this conversation.
It was mom and dad and my aunt, of course,
but in terms of
family unit and he said, you start with two,
and now we've got 3.5 because
it was now my brother and my mother was pregnant.
He was joking with them.
And so they met them. They had
an apartment set up for them in Charleston.
So there was some place when they got there
and my father first got work.
His trade was carpentry and he got a job that
didn't last long because they had
difficulty with the language barrier.
>> Your relatives, did they have a car?
Did they drive them to Charleston from New York?
>> I'm thinking it's a train. I think they took a train.
And when they saw
the apartment, they thought they were in heaven.
They saw apartment, they saw a crib for the baby,
they saw food in the refrigerator.
>> So you mentioned this language barrier.
What languages did they speak?
>> Yiddish and Polish.
>> And were there
any services set up to help them learn English?
>> Learned it on the fly.
My mother tells a story.
She said, I just learned it by reading.
And she said one day she
got a knock on the door and it was the paper boy,
and he wanted her to subscribe
to the Charleston Newspaper.
She says, well, somehow,
she could speak enough to
communicate to him that I don't really know English.
He says, I tell you what you're going to do.
I'll give you a free week subscription
and see how you like it.
And to the day she left Charleston,
which was 2007, she had a subscription to the newspaper.
>> So what was the neighborhood
like? Where was this apartment?
>> It was in the Peninsular city
of Charleston, small apartment.
Address was 87.5 Warren Street.
But it was a community for us.
I don't remember.
When I was born, they were living there,
but shortly thereafter,
moved around the corner and bought their first home.
>> So you came along in 1952.
>> So my oldest brother was born in April 1949.
My second brother was born in June of '50.
So they're 14 months apart.
I was born in August of 1952,
so a little bit
more than two years older than my second brother.
And then my sister was born in August of '56.
So there are seven years between oldest and youngest.
>> So what were some of
your first memories of your neighborhood?
>> We had Jewish people and non Jewish people.
Childhood friend of mine,
my first friend was Catholic.
She lived two or three doors down.
To this day, we're still friends.
She was a year older than I am,
but there was also Jewish people
on the street and in the neighborhood.
We were probably a 10 minute walk to
the synagogue. I thought it was great.
You don't know anything differently,
but I thought I felt safe.
Certainly, I felt loved.
>> How about your parents?
What were some of your first memories of your parents?
>> I didn't have any other parents,
so you don't have much from which to compare,
but some of the things
that may be different is that
when they spoke to each other.
They always spoke in Yiddish.
So if we were in the room,
they could speak Yiddish and
we wouldn't have any idea what they're talking
about until we got to
hang some of the Yiddish and we
could get the gist of what they were saying.
Then when that occurred,
they would just go to Polish and we were totally lost.
So when maybe some of
my friends and their parents
needed to talk about something.
They would say go in another room.
They didn't have to do that with us.
All they had to do was switch languages.
>> Did they ever talk about their past?
>> Eventually, they did. What they did talk about in
our younger years is that there were
people that preceded us and people that we don't know.
One of the things that I can remember them saying that,
I felt they, my parents felt like they had two families.
One before the war and one after the war,
and the two didn't intersect
like you would expect a family to intersect.
>> Did they have a lot of friends in the neighborhood?
>> They did. But there were
a lot of Kalushiner. They were a lot.
Back, I guess, in the early 20th century,
there was some men from Kalushiner that
eventually settled in
Charleston and there were people that followed.
There was a Kalushiner society in Charleston.
So there were commonalities of people there.
So they had that connection
and there were also some other survivors there too.
>> And at this point, you
mentioned that you could walk to synagogue.
Was Judaism still a big part of your growing up?
>> Very much so.
>> And were you raised Orthodox?
>> Orthodox, yes. It was the Orthodox synagogue
to which we lived close.
>> And in Charleston,
you mentioned that you had friends who were Catholic,
you had Jewish friends.
Were most of your or all of your friends white?
>> Yes. In the younger yes.
>> So did you did you have a sense that
there was this other group
of people that there were black people?
>> Because they lived close by.
They lived in the neighborhood.
That they lived literally
around the corner in some homes.
So the answer is yes.
>> But was there a clear line
of segregation that you remember?
>> Not in the neighborhoods,
but I certainly have
memories in the department store of the water facets,
where it says, colored only and white only.
I do have those memories.
>> And what about school.
What was your education like?
>> I went to a public school.
So we all eventually ended up.
My second brother, David,
when the rabbi came to my parents one day because
he wanted to start a day school with his class.
My oldest brother was in public school.
So David went the first year to the Hebrew day school.
But they only started with
the first grade and they didn't advance it to the next.
They didn't I guess,
have the resource or whatever.
For whatever reason, they
didn't advance it to the second grade.
So he joined my brother in
the public schools. I always start.
I went to the day school kindergarten,
but I immediately went into the public schools.
My sister went to the day school,
I think until the seventh grade
and then went to the public schools.
>> And did the public school
teach about World War 2 at all,
or was it too recent?
>> I'm sure I had it in history class.
I don't have any bridging my parents to it.
But I know we studied it,
but I don't have any strong recollections of that.
>> And was a there talk about the holocaust?
Was that something that came up in
conversation in your community at all?
>> There was conversation about it.
But in terms of my parents story,
they didn't really come
sit us down like, we need to talk to you.
One other thing I'll tell you about in terms of school is
that my mother tells the story when
I was in about the second grade or so,
they had some program at school where grandparents
came and they weren't at this point,
tell us about all the things
that had happened during the war.
And she said, I came home from school that day.
And I don't remember this, but she does.
And I said, why don't I have grandparents?
And she told me the truth.
She said, "They didn't survive."
>> Did you have other friends who had similar situations?
>> Yeah. I did.
Some of them who were also children of survivors.
>> So going up through school,
what were your favorite subjects?
What did you like to study?
>> I did like history and civics,
were some of my favorite subjects.
>> And were you in
public school after Brown versus Board of Education?
>> Well, Brown versus Board of Education,
because of history, 1954,
I was born in 52. So yes.
>> I imagine it took a little longer for
integration to come to Charleston.
>> Yeah. I started an integrated class in the 8th grade.
>> Do you have memories of what that was like?
>> Yeah. It was fine.
Some of my closest friends who played on
basketball team with African American people.
I know that there was curfew when
the hospital workers actually were trying
to unionized the Blacks and we had the other curfew.
They canceled the prom
when I was of age at that time because of that.
I remember the name of
the first person that integrated the high school.
His name was Clarence Alexander.
I remember one of my high school
classmates who was African American,
her name was Betty Jean Higgins.
I don't know what happened to him,
but I do remember the names.
>> So what did you hope to do with your future?
When you were in high school, did you
have career goals or plans?
>> I knew I was going to go to college.
My plan was to be a high school social studies teacher.
And that was my major.
I went to the University of South Carolina.
My siblings went to the University of Georgia,
I went to South Carolina.
When I graduated, that field was a dime a
dozen so I just entered the workforce.
I had various careers.
I worked in the insurance industry,
I worked for a company that
did automated services for insurance agencies.
My most recent career was in human resources.
I retired as a human resources officer
at Jewish Home Life here in Atlanta,
which is serves the Eldercare community.
>> And so what years were you in college?
>> 1970-'74 was my undergraduate.
I went back and got my master's,
but it was it was 20 years after I got my undergraduate.
>> And was there a lot of
Vietnam War protesting and
stuff that you remember going on when you were there?
>> [inaudible].
>> Was that something that touched your life in any way?
>> The way it touched my life as I can
certainly remember, because they were,
getting draft cards and my brothers were of
age and they had high numbers.
I can even remember the numbers,
I think one brother had 212 and another one had 346.
So they never got drafted.
But I that's a clear memory I have.
>> So how did you eventually come to Atlanta?
>> So I graduated from college.
And at that point,
I knew I didn't want to go back to Charleston.
My oldest brother was living here.
So I came here and just got a job,
because a lot of a lot of
people in the southeast migrated to Atlanta.
A lot of Jewish kids did that.
>> So did you ever really
have a conversation with
your parents about their experiences,
that was complete or frank
about what they had lost and what they went through?
>. My first recollection is when I
was probably in the eighth grade.
And I had to do a speech.
I decided to interview
my mother and I can remember saying,
okay mom, tell me what to say.
And she says, no, you ask me
questions and I'll answer them.
So it was really about her war experience,
and it was the first time I really had some type of
chronology to what happened,
and that was really my first vivid memory.
They talked about family from
before the war and such like that,
but that was
my really first clear indication of the experience.
>> So you mentioned that you have family in Israel.
Did you travel to Israel with your parents ever?
>> Not with my parents, but I had
been to Israel numerous times.
>> And you told me a particular story
about going in 2001.
>> I did. So in 2001,
I went on a federation trip.
It was an all women's trip,
small group, 40-45 women.
And every trip you go to Israel,
if it's any Jewish group,
they're always going to take you to
Yad Vashem which is Israeli memorial to the Holocaust.
This was my first trip to Israel since
my mother had arranged to have a plaque
put for one of the [inaudible] brothers
on the avenue of the Righteous Gentiles,
as you enter Yad Vashem.
So on that trip,
as we were heading to Yad Vashem,
I said to the tour guide, I said, look,
when we get to Yad Vashem,
when we get there, I want to see
if I can find this plaque.
And she said, okay,
we'll go up and look it up on
the computer and see if we can find a location, etc.
And so when we got there,
and we were getting off the bus.
There was a lot of construction going on,
a lot of things that they were renovating
and part of that was the avenue of
the Righteous where they were doing this work.
And we were off the bus and as we were gathering,
I said to the group with whom I
was traveling, I said, look,
as you're going through this,
I'm looking for this particular name, [inaudible].
And I mean, literally,
I think somebody no further than
this door of this room from me,
looks down and says,
Sarah, it's right here.
And if I can grab this for a moment,
I will show you pictures from that moment.
So this is me
looking a little bit younger than I am today,
at the plaque of [inaudible].
This is a close up of that same plaque.
And this is me in
the part of Yad Vashem that's
called the wall of the cities,
and these are the cities that were liquidated of
the Jews and this is my parents hometown.
And so let me see how they spell it here.
The spell it K-A-L-U-S-Z-Y-N, Kaluszyn.
So that's the memory that I have of that moment.
And to this day, when I run
into people who were on that trip,
we reminisce about this because it was one of
those aha moments that you couldn't script.
>> So why do you think it's
important for students to learn about the Holocaust?
>> I think it's important to know the facts of
history and what people did
to other people just because of
their religious cultural affiliation
and for no other reason.
I think depending on the age,
depends on how much depth you go.
But they need to know that it
happened and need to
know the lessons of what we learned from that,
and how do we avoid something like that happening again,
even though there have been atrocities since then.
And we know that. But I
think they need to know
because we know history can repeat itself.
>> And what do you think are some of those lessons?
>> Well, my mother did a video for South Carolina ETV,
and it's a clip I use.
It's at the end, because the interviewer asks,
is there anything you want to add?
And she says, don't judge.
Don't judge because somebody looks different than you.
Don't judge because people have different accents,
judge people on their deeds.
Judge them on what they do.
And I think that is one of the clear lessons.
Don't judge them because they're part of a group.
Don't stereotype people and make assumptions about,
this person must be bad because they look this way,
or they must be bad because they're this color,
or they must be bad because they're not like me.
>> It's a powerful lesson.
What do you hope that future generations will take
away from learning your family's story specifically?
>> That it really happened.
That this is not
just something that's in the history books.
This affected real people.
It ended people's lives.
People lost family, a lot of family.
My mother had numerous aunts,
uncles and cousins who did not survive,
most of her family did not survive the war.
And to lose family in
this manner for no other reason
than the fact that they were Jewish,
they need to know that this is just
not something that's printed in a history book.
This affected real people. I saw the pain.
I heard the pain in my parents,
and I want them to know that I
don't want anybody to go through what they endured.
>> So here's that question.
Is there anything I haven't asked you
about today that you'd like to share?
>> I think I have pretty much covered it all.
It was man's inhumanity to man.
And we are better than this.
I think regardless of the color of our skin,
regardless of our ethnicity,
we are better than this,
than what happened during during the Holocaust.
And each is individual people
caring and doing the right thing, not judging.
So this is something that each and every person,
in which they can have an impact.
>> Thank you so much for your time and for recording
this legacy series interview
with us today. I really appreciate it.
>> Thank you. I appreciate it.