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The story from here on out become remarkably similar to the experience of most Americans. Charlotte graduated from high school, she dated, fell in love, got married, and raised a family. Yes, she had survived the Holocaust, but it quickly became a distant memory that did not affect her daily life.
Although the family intended to migrate to Israel, political realities meant that was years away. Instead, the family moved to the Philadelphia area and lived with Charlotte's paternal aunt (who had moved prior to the war). Upon arrival, Charlotte's parents got jobs at a factory, and Charlotte began to try to catch up in school.
Charlotte was not Charlotte's birth name. Nor was America her birth country. But she displayed a remarkable ability to adapt and build in both. Despite losing out on childhood, she soon found herself doing well in her classes. She was a self described social person with plenty of friends. Her life in America was one of middle class comfort and she quickly Americanized
The political realities prevented the immediate migration to Israel, so Charlotte and her family went to live in a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria. There, the family found its first sense of normalcy in over six years, and the wounds of the forests started to become scars. Charlotte’s leg, which had been wounded in the forest finally started to heal. The gnawing hunger of the forest started to become a memory of the past.
Charlotte's granddaughter, Talia, is the reason Charlotte and I came to meet each other. During the interviews, Charlotte would talk extensively about her children, Talia and her other grandchildren. For Charlotte, the Holocaust was such a small part of an otherwise rich life, and most of our time was spent on topics that had no relationship to the Holocaust. She showed me albums filled with photos and memories. There lies the beauty of Charlotte's story. We focused on the nightmare that she survived. But a vast majority of her time was filled with happiness and vibrant life.
Charlotte and her family spent about a year in the ghetto. The time was plagued by hunger. Somehow, her father escaped the work camp by bribing the guard with a piece of gold he had hidden in his collar. He then arranged for Charlotte, her mom, and sister to escape the ghetto.
Their quiet lives were demolished upon the invasion of the Germans in September of 1939. When the Germans arrived, Charlotte’s family had to give up their valuables and Charlotte, at three years old, with her sister and mother were sent to a ghetto while her father went to a work camp. Her grandparents were murdered on the spot
For any rebirth, there needs to be a destruction. The Holocaust and the destruction that Charlotte faced is hard for us to comprehend. The life her family had know was about to be suddenly torn apart, and they would bear witness to the most terrible and despicable elements of humanity.
Prior to the war, Charlotte and her family lived on a shtetl in Poland. Her family was not lacking. She was surrounded by her mother and father's family. Her father was a tailor, and her mom took care of the house and dabbled in commerce.
The years of trying to just survive in the forest weighed down on Charlotte. At an age when most kids are going to school, she was hiding and wondering when next she would eat. All sense of normalcy and childhood had been lost.
Fleeing to the forest by no means brought a reprieve from suffering. The family made it to the forest in some time between late 1940 and early 1941, and Allied victory laid several years in the future. The family lived with partisan fighters, parts of Charlotte’s mother’s family, and other Jewish families. The hunger that defined the ghetto continued in the forest. Whatever was to be eaten had to be foraged or stolen. They lived in dugouts, and the Germans constantly hunted for the partisans and families living in the forest.
Eventually the nightmare ended, and after four years in the forest, Charlotte and her family emerged. But they emerged broken and into a world that was irreconcilable with their past life. Their lives on the shtetl had been destroyed, Poland was a puppet state of the USSR, and the Cold War was beginning.
Charlotte's family was one of the lucky families. None of her immediate family members had died in the war, most of her mother's family also survived. However, almost all of her father's side had been slaughtered. But the time of surviving had past, and it was now time to rebuild. They were not welcome back at their shtetl, so they looked towards Israel.
Charlotte's father and uncle
What makes Charlotte’s story remarkable, is not what she survived, but what she built. Often, stories of the Holocaust get lost in the horrors and the atrocities. They become stories of the sadism and barbarism of Nazis, but what we should remember is the tremendous spirit of those who defied them. Hence, I would like to take you on a journey. I want you to see a young girl’s life torn asunder and then see her defy the Nazis and build her own life.