by Jennifer Roy
Then Dora got married. She and her husband, Jack, decided to move to the United States. They settled in Albany, New York.
Sadly, Syvia’s mother, Haya, developed cancer and died when Syvia was just sixteen. Syvia and her father were devastated. They remained in Paris for a while, but it wasn’t the same without Haya and Dora. Dora encouraged them to come to America, so they could all be together. In 1957 Isaac and Syvia Perlmutter emigrated to the United States, settling near Dora and Jack.
Syvia’s father got a good job in sales. And Syvia, whose name was Americanized to Sylvia, got a job in a dress shop. She was still learning English and adjusting to her new country when she met David Rozines, also a survivor. They were married in 1959. Soon they moved to Rochester, New York, where their son was born.
Life in Rochester was pleasant. David sold and installed window treatments. Their son attended school in one of the best school districts in the country. Sylvia worked in her son’s school cafeteria. She was thrilled that her child was getting the education she never had. David’s mother, Rachel, lived with them. They all saw Isaac and Dora often. Isaac now had two grandchildren—Sylvia’s son and Dora’s daughter, Helene. (The two cousins have remained good friends to this day.)
Time passed. Milestones were celebrated. In 1975, Sylvia and David’s son celebrated his bar mitzvah—a proud moment for a Jewish family. (This author—age eight—attended, wearing a floor-length dress for the first time ever!) Around that time, Isaac Perlmutter celebrated his 70th birthday with a party (at which this author remembers dancing with “Mr. Perlmutter”—a very nice, bald, older gentleman with twinkly eyes and a big smile). Not long after that party, Isaac—Sylvia’s “Papa”—passed away. He was much loved and respected. Most people knew nothing of what he had done during the war.
Sylvia and David’s son went to college and, after graduation, went to work in Washington, D.C. He married a nurse, and in 1991, they had their first child, Jeffrey Isaac. Their daughter, Alyssa Rachel, was born three years later.
Sylvia and David loved being grandparents. David’s mother had passed away at an old age, and Sylvia and David were able to visit their son’s family often.
Then David developed leukemia and died. Sylvia sold the house in Rochester and moved to Maryland, not far from her son, his wife, and the grandchildren.
Today, Sylvia regularly volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Since she started talking about her childhood, she has become involved in organizations that teach Holocaust history. Sylvia was photographed for a traveling exhibit about survivors of World War II ghettos. She was videotaped for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, which preserves survivors’ stories. And, if you’re at the Holocaust Museum on just the right day, you might go on a tour led by a guide with large, brown, twinkly eyes and a European accent. That’s Sylvia. Sharing a history that is also her history.
Where Are the Others Now?
Sylvia’s sister, Dora, still lives in Albany, New York, with her husband, Jack. Their grown daughter, Helene, attended Sylvia’s grandson Jeffrey’s bar mitzvah. Due to poor health, Dora and Jack are unable to travel, so Sylvia talks to her sister by phone. Dora is looking forward to reading this book after it is published!
“Baby” Isaac is now called Jack. His family emigrated to Canada after the war. Haskel and Hana have since passed away. Jack married Joanna, another Polish survivor, and had two children, Martin and Karen, now grown. Jack lives in Toronto.
Sara and Shmuel survived the concentration camps, but their sons did not. After the war, they moved to Israel and had another son.
Rose and Hyman and their daughter, Mina (whom Papa saved in a wheelbarrow), all survived the concentration camps. Mina now lives in New York City.
Malka’s daughter died in a concentration camp, but Malka and her three sons survived. The sons live in the United States. Label, Herschel, Edit, Esther, and Sura died in the camps.
Every single evening, for over fifty years, Sylvia has said Kaddish—the prayer for the dead. She prays for her little friends Hava and Itka. Then she prays for all the others—uncles, cousins, neighbors, and strangers—who perished in the war. Their voices were silenced years ago. Now Sylvia has spoken up to remember them, and to share her memories so that we will never forget.
Time Line
September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland.
World War II begins.
Norway, Finland, and Switzerland declare themselves neutral.
September 3, 1939
Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declare war on Germany. Canada soon follows on September 10.
September 5, 1939
United States remains neutral.
September 8, 1939
Germans occupy Lodz, Poland.
November 23, 1939
Jews in Poland ordered to wear Star of David.
February 21, 1940
Construction of Auschwitz concentration camp begins.
April 9, 1940
Germany invades Norway and Denmark.
May 10, 1940
Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Britain.
May 15, 1940
The Netherlands surrenders.
June 5, 1940
Germany attacks France.
June 10, 1940
Italy declares war on Britain and France.
June 22, 1940
France surrenders to Germany and Italy.
Germany invades Soviet Union.
Summer 1940
Battles rage over sea and air.
August 25, 1940
Britain bombs Berlin, Germany, in retaliation for a Nazi bomb attack on London.
September 7, 1940
Germany begins bombing blitz of London.
June 22, 1941
Nazis invade Soviet Union and begin massacres of Jews, including one in Babi Yar, Kiev, in which 33,000 Jews were shot.
September 19, 1941
Hitler orders all Jews over the age of six in occupied Europe to wear the Star of David on their clothes.
December 6, 1941
Soviet army begins counteroffensive against Germany.
December 7, 1941
Japan attacks U.S. Navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,403.
December 8, 1941
United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
December 11, 1941
Germany and Italy declare war on United States.
January 20, 1942
Wannsee Conference sets Jewish “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
January 13, 1942
United States begins moving Japanese Americans into internment camps.
January 16, 1942
Deportations from Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno extermination camp begin.
June 4, 1942
Battle of Midway begins.
August 7, 1942
U.S. Marines land on Guadalcanal, part of the Solomon Islands.
February 2, 1943
Nazis defeated in Stalingrad, Russia.
May 16, 1943
Destruction of the Warsaw ghetto.
July 21, 1943
Nazi chief Heinrich Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland and the Soviet Union.
September 1943
Allies land in Italy. Italy surrenders
October 13, 1943
Italy declares war on Germany.
Summer–Fall, 1943
Liquidation of ghettos continues. Thousands of Jews shipped to concentration camps. Lodz continues to be spared.
June 6, 1944
D-day—Allied invasion in Normandy, France.
June 23, 1944
Jewish “volunteers” shipped to Chelmno from Lodz.
July 20, 1944
Attempted assassination of Hitler fails.
August 7–30, 1944
Deportations from Lodz to Auschwitz-Birke
nau concentration camp.
November 6, 1944
Roosevelt wins U.S. presidency for a record fourth term.
January 17, 1945
Soviet army takes capital city of Warsaw, Poland, from Nazis.
January 19, 1945
Lodz ghetto liberated.
February 4, 1945
Yalta Conference begins. Allies discuss war plans.
February 19, 1945
United States lands on island of Iwo Jima.
April 1, 1945
Battle of Okinawa, Japan.
April 12, 1945
Allies liberate Buchenwald and Belsen concentration camps.
President Roosevelt dies. Harry S. Truman becomes president.
April 16, 1945
Battle of Berlin.
April 28, 1945
Benito Mussolini assassinated in Italy.
April 30, 1945
Hitler commits suicide.
May 2, 1945
Soviets take Berlin, Germany.
May 8, 1945
Germany surrenders (Victory in Europe Day).
August 6, 1945 and August 9, 1945
United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14, 1945
Japan surrenders, and World War II ends.