Letters to Rose

by Rose Williams

  A new life did await Rose after the events recollected here come to an end. Rose was admitted to the United States in 1950 and later had another precious son, A Jay Serchay. For decades, Pete and A Jay knew she was a survivor, but they didn’t know her story. Like so many others in her situation, Rose wanted to look forward, not backward. It was only when Pete acquired leukemia and was on his deathbed in 1989 that she sat by his side and revealed her years in the camps.

  Pete made Rose promise to tell her story. Rose kept the promise, but it would be another eighteen years before she could muster the courage to speak publicly. Maxine Cohen, Director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum San Antonio (HMMSA), finally succeeded in convincing Rose that she had a story worth telling, one that might affect the lives of innumerable people, especially children.

  Flash forward to 2007. Newly retired educator Becky Hoag became a docent-in-training for HMMSA about the same time Rose began speaking. Cohen sent them to Harlingen on the Texas border to present a program to students on the Holocaust. The bond that began that day evolved into “family” over the next decade and more.

  Rose, at some point, had given Maxine Cohen a translated copy of her handwritten Paris memoir. As a surprise for her 2011 birthday, Hoag typed, chaptered, bound, and recorded it on CD. There was some editing involved as well. After all, English was the fourth learned of her five languages. The goal was to preserve her story for family as Pete had intended.

  In preparation for this book, Hoag and Williams tweaked, reworked and enhanced where possible. But the heart and soul of the memoir remains true to Rose’s original recounting.

  Becky Ebner Hoag

  MEET THE AUTHORS

  (left to right): Robin Philbrick,

  Rose Sherman Williams, and Becky Ebner Hoag

  Student Contributors from

  Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson H.S. Northeast ISD San Antonio, Texas

  Group picture of some of the students

  participating in a writing workshop meeting on

  Letters to Rose.

  Rose Williams is in the center; teacher Robin Philbrick to her right.

  Co-author Becky Hoag photographer.

  Endnotes

  Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1975) 91.

  “Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/invasion-of-poland-fall-1939.

  Rebecca Weiner, “Poland Virtual History Tour,” Jewish Virtual Library-A Product of AICE, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/poland-virtual-history-tour.

  Dawidowicz 200-202.

  Robert Kuwalek and Chip Sother. “Radom.” Holocaust Research Project, Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, 2007, www.holocaustresearchproject.org/.

  Martin Dean, editor. “Radom Region,” Encyclopedia of Camps Ghettos 1933-1945, vol 2 Part A, (Indiana P/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2012) 185.

  Azriel Eisenberg, Witness to the Holocaust, (Pilgrim’s P, 1981) 133.

  Saul Friedlander, The Years of Extermination. (Harper Collins, 2007) 38-43.

  Dawidowicz 208-214.

  Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know: the History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Little, Brown, 1993) 72-74.

  “Ghetto in Radom,” Wirtualny Sztetl/Muzeum Historii Zydow Polskich POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, www.sztetl.org.pl/;

  Polin, Pinkas Hakehillot, translator, “Radom.” Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities in Poland, vol. VII, Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland,www.yadvashem.org/research/research-projects/holocaust-poland.html 540.

  Alfred, Lipson, editor, “Part II: The Years of Disaster--Under Nazi Rule “from The Book of Radom: The Story of a Jewish Community in Poland Destroyed by the Nazis. Translated by Y Perlow, (JewishGen - The Home of Jewish Genealogy, New York: United Radomer Relief for US and Canada, 25 Jan. 2014), www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/radom/rade077.html 52-54.

  Sam Goldwasser, My Memories: A Narrative, (Lauderhill, Florida, 20 Jan. 2004) 9-11;Gina Gotfryd, “A Survivor’s Testimony,” Gina Gotfryd Collection, (United States Holocoasut Memorial Museum, 1995), ww.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn500628 4;

  Mania Tenenbaum Salinger, Looking Back, (Ferne P, 2006) 59.

  Polin 541.

  Goldwasser 11; Lipson 54.

  Lipson 50-55.

  Gotfryd 5.

  Goldwasser 11-12;“Jewish Woman Describes Four-Day Extermination of Jews in Poland.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 13 Aug. 1943, www.jta.org.

  Lipson 57.

  Gotfryd 7-8; Salinger 73-75.

  Polin 542-43.

  Lipson 60.

  Lipson 59-63.

  Otto, Friedrich, The Kingdom of Auschwitz,(Harper Collins, 1982) 1.

  Friedrich, 17.

  “The Holocaust in Poland.” Facing History and Ourselves, (Facing History and Ourselves, 2017), www.facinghistory.org/;Margaret Stern Strom, Facing History and Ourselves--Holocaust and Human Behavior, (Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, 1994) 343.

  Betty Merti, Understanding the Holocaust, (J. Weston Walch, 1995) 140.

  Friedlander 237-38;Milton Meltzer, Never to Forget: the Jews of the Holocaust, (Harper Collins, 1976), 107;

  Strom, 319-20.

  “Auschwitz,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wic/article.php?Moduleld=10005189;“Concentration Camp System: In Depth,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org>wic>article;

  “Tattoos and Numbers: The System of Identifying Prisoners at Auschwitz,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wic/article/php?Moduleld 10007056.

  Bachrach 54-57.

  “Auschwitz-Birkenau--The Death Factory,” JewishGen - The Home of Jewish Genealogy, Forgotten Camps, www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/AuschwitzEng.html;Igor Bartosik, “Sonderkommando Interview with Auschwitz Historian Igor Bartosik.” Translated by Iga Bunalska, Auschwitz Study Group, (Auschwitz Study Group, Apr. 2016), www.auschwitzstudygroup.com/. Originally published in Os magazine, April, 2016.

  Daniel J Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, (Vintage Books, 1996) 322.

  Berenbaum 133-152;“Chapter 9, Reading 9: Auschwitz,” The Holocaust and Human Behavior, (The Holocaust in Poland/Facing History and Ourselves, 2016), www.facinghistory.org/;

  Eisenberg 215-217;

  Strom 319-23.

  Geoff Walden, “Birkenau (Auschwitz) Concentration and Extermination Camp,” Third Reich in Ruins, (Third Reich in Ruins, 20 July 2000), thirdreichruins.com/.

  Eisenberg 215.

  Strom 323.

  Piotr M.A. Cywinski, et al., “Auschwitz Birkenau Subcamps/Hindenburg,” Auschwitz from A-Z--An Illustrated History, (Auschwitz.org, Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau--Former German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp, 2013);Halina Den, “Hindenburg--Auschwitz August 1944--January 1945,” Collections Search--USHMM, (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 30 Dec. 2009), collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/lrn39132.

  “Hindenburg: Testimony of Anna Pieczonkowa- (Nee Polankowa),” Hindenburg-Testimonies-Auschwitz Study Group, (Auschwitz Study Group); 16 Aug. 2000;Salinger 95-97.

  Salinger 104-05.

  Bachrach 76;“Chapter 9, Reading 31: The Death Marches,” The Holocaust and Human Behavior, The Holocaust in Poland/Facing History and Ourselves, (Facing History and Ourselves, 2016), www.facinghistory.org/;

  Friedlander 648-49.

  Berenbaum 181-83;Goldhagen 330 & 364.

  “Auschwitz”;Bachrach 76.

  “Bergen-Bel
sen.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bergen-belsen?series=18002#;“Chapter 9, Reading 27: A Transport to Bergen-Belsen,” The Holocaust and Human Behavior, Facing History and Ourselves, (The Holocaust in Poland/Facing History and Ourselves, 2016), www.facinghistory.org/;

  Anna Jagodzinska, “Concentration Camps in Germany 1933-45,” Truth about Camps, Institute of National Remembrance, www.zonwhois.net/www/truthaboutcamps.eu.html.

  Eisenberg 478-81;Salinger 107-08;

  Donna Sklar, “Testimony of Mania Salinger,” Holocaust Memorial Center-Zekelman Family Campus, (Holocaust Memorial Center, 1 Aug. 2000), www.holocaustcenter.org/.

  “Bergen-Belsen Death Camp,” Holocaust Remembrance, Sanctuary, and Tribute to Survivors, (Forget You Not Project, 15 Dec. 2002), www.isurvived.org/Bergen-Belsen_liberation.html;Richard Dimbleby, “Richard Dimbleby Reporting from Bergen-Belsen, Part I, April, 1945, for BBC Radio,” UTUBE - UTube.com™ ,(Justaveragejoe, 2010), www.UTube.com/.

  “Bergen-Belsen Displaced Person’s Camp,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, www.ushmm.org/wic/en/article.php?Moduleld=10007066.

  “United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/united-nations-relief-and-rehabilitation-administration.

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  Bielawski, Krzysztof. “Ghetto in Radom.” Wirtualny Sztetl | Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 2015, www.sztetl.org.pl/.

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