I went to two different schools, a Polish school and a religious Jewish school for girls, Bais Yakov, that my mother helped organized in our town.
When I was only 14, my family was forced from their home by the Nazi’s. I survived by fleeing Poland with my family.
With no home of their own, our family wandered throughout the war and nearly everyone survived. During this hardship, my mother would encourage me saying, “Rochelle, tomorrow will be a better day.”
Though it was hard to believe it at the time, this kept her going.
When the day arrived for the Jewish people in the town to leave, the German soldiers told us "we don't want the Jewish people here, we want you to go," and we had two hours to pack our belongings and leave. I remember my mother telling the family to stay together.
The family was then transported to an unnamed labor camp in Siberia and my father was asked whether he would like his family to become Russian citizens and receive passports. My father refused because we were Polish. We learned later, that the families who accepted the passports were exterminated in concentration camps.
My family was separated from my oldest brother during the journey. We didn't know what happened to him until we were reunited five years later. During my five years at the camp, I was forced to haul bricks and stack them on pallets. My family worked every day, without showers and we were constantly hungry.
It was terrible. During the time in the labor camp, my grandfather died.
After the war, the Polish government reclaimed its citizens and my family received visas to move to Costa Rica to live with an uncle. After learning Spanish, living and working in Costa Rica for 11 months, I moved to Oak Park to live with my aunt.
When I came to America, I spoke four languages and none of them were English. However I was a fast learner. I “Americanized myself.”
I used my own experience to later help other immigrants, most of them Russian to acclimate to life in the United States. I opened my home to them, I translated for them, I helped them apply for jobs, getting them to the doctor’s and so on.