My mother ran an open house and enjoyed entertaining guests.
Mutti learned with my sister and me and taught us how to
daven, to kasher meat, and to make the arba
kanfos on the tzitzis. Every summer, our family
vacationed in the mountains with Mutti's family.
On more than one occasion, my mother took other children into
our home, an opportunity which also offered the potential of
opening their hearts to Yiddishkeit. When I was 11 years old,
my classmate's mother asked if we could take in her daughter
and a 7- year-old son for a while after the children's father
had died. Daisy and her brother lived with us for a year and
a half.
Daisy's mother was a member of the Reform temple. Before Rosh
Hashanah, Mutti informed Daisy, "I'm not going to buy you a
ticket at the Reform temple. We daven at the Orthodox
shul." Daisy decided to attend the Reform service in
the evening and the Orthodox service by day.
After the holiday, she declared, "I'm not going back to the
Reform anymore." Although her mother was furious, Daisy clung
to her newfound beliefs. At the age of 17, Daisy left Germany
on the last aliya train to Palestine, a week before
Kristallnacht. She married a frum Yid and raised four
children in Eretz Yisroel.
*
At the age of three months, I was diagnosed with an eye
problem that severely limited my sight and required my
wearing strong glasses. But in those days, there was no such
thing as `baby glasses.' I had to wait until I was 6 to wear
frames that fit me, and another year to get used to the
glasses before I was allowed to start school.
The Jewish school was located too far away for either my
sister or me to attend. When I was 7 1/2, I had to enter a
Catholic public school, but I never attended school on
Shabbos. Four years later, I graduated to secondary school.
My parents found a private, non- sectarian school that had
only 12 girls in my class, in which I was able to sit close
to the blackboard and participate in the lessons.
Hitler ym's became Chancellor of Germany shortly
before my twelfth birthday, in 1933. Soon after, the new Nazi
government began to implement anti-Jewish decrees. One of
those edicts forced Jewish children out of the public
schools.
The private school that I attended wanted to get rid of me,
their only Jew. In the fall of 1933, my teacher informed my
mother that the curriculum would change in the spring and
that the important subjects would henceforth be taught on
Shabbos. Mutti immediately transferred me to the only Jewish
school, Adas Yisroel, which had 50 girls to a class. I was
not able to keep up with such a huge class and had to leave
school altogether when I was only 14 years old.
Hashgocha Protis intervened to find me a profession
that would stand me in good stead for nearly 50 years.
Knowing that my poor vision could not tolerate close work in
an office, my parents enrolled me in an 18-month home
economics course. In April 1937, at the tender age of 16, I
assumed my first job in the kitchen of a 50-bed hospital run
by Adas Yisroel, the government-recognized Orthodox
organization.
At first, I worked under two cooks, one a religious Jew and
the other a gentile. After a while, the gentile was
dismissed, since Nazi laws forbade gentiles to work for Jews,
and no Jewish cooks were available. Since the Jewish cook
could not work full-time seven days a week, she sometimes
took off for the evening meal and left me in charge.
A nurse was assigned to help me, but one time she made a
mistake on a diet. She ordered black bread for a kidney
patient, whose salt intake was strictly limited. "His diet is
not supposed to have that," I told her. "Yes, he can," she
argued. She was fired for making that mistake. I stayed on
and learned all about diets and how to set up the trays for
the patients.
In June 1938, I moved to an old age home run by the
Grossgemeinde. My parents wanted me to broaden my experience
with patients and diets, and this new job involved working in
the kitchen and serving the patients. But I abruptly left
this job four months later.
One of the first decrees passed by the Nazi leadership was a
ban on kosher slaughter. Other Jews began importing chicken
and meat from Holland. The more lenient Grossgemeinde started
a special method of government-approved shechita which
they called "New Kosher."
On October 8, 1938, during my tenure at the old age home, the
order from the Grossgemeinde came through to change over the
kitchen to "New Kosher." I left that job for religious
principles, just as I had left school six years earlier. From
then on, I filled in at the Adas Yisroel hospital whenever
they needed me. I even worked on one of the first days of
Pesach and walked an hour and a half each way to the job. I
did that mitzva because they needed me.
