After the German invasion, my family, while trying to escape to the USSR, was stranded for several weeks in a “no man’s land.”  My father managed to cross the border and secure the necessary papers allowing my sister and me legal entry to an immigrant camp near Bialystok.  My mother was left behind and later was loaded on a train by the Germans.  My mother escaped from the train and returned to Warsaw. She eventually made it across the Russian border.  

 

Several months later my family was loaded into cattle cars and deported to Siberian labor camps in a journey that lasted six weeks.  We wound up in a brick-making camp.  We suffered from hunger and exposure, lacking suitable clothing in the frigid climate of Siberian winters.  

 

In 1942, the USSR recognized the Polish Government in Exile and my family was set free to leave the camp.  We headed south to Uzbekistan, hoping for milder climate and a more plentiful food supply.  Instead, we found ourselves in an impoverished village where we had no work or food.  

 

To prevent the children from starving, my parents placed us in an orphanage for Jewish children.  While there, my father died of dysentery.  After the war, my family returned to Poland and I was placed in an orphanage in Cracow where I remained until I was 17.  

 

The family immigrated to Israel, where I married an American man.  A few years later I moved to the United States. 

            

Only in a country where all minorities have full rights and freedom can Jews as a minority lead a private and communal life according to it’s tradition and values.  Become active towards this objective, don’t just be a bystander with good intentions.  Learn about your history and heritage as a Jew and be proud of who you, we are.