Thursday, July 05, 2018
Where Were You On May 14, 1948?
Nadene Goldfoot
On May 14, 1948, I had already been confirmed in our Neveh Zedek Synagogue in South Portland in 1946 and was now 13 years old. At that age I had already finished my first year of high school that would start up again in September and I would then be a sophmore.
That's old enough to know a little of what was going on in the world. Still, I didn't understand the miracle that was happening; of after 2,000 years, our people were announcing the birth of their nation after waiting and praying for that many years 3 times a day. My family's life was no different on that day than any other. I don't think I even knew what was taking place.
In May 1939, my future uncle Werner was one of the last Jews to get out of Germany and headed for the USA. Werner Oster was then 21 years old. His father had served in WWI as a German soldier. His family could only afford to get Werner out of the country. My great uncle Max had been his sponsor, getting him a job with my father. By September, he would marry my Aunt Anne. I was the very shy flower girl in the wedding.
Kristallnacht had taken place November 9th and 10th, 1938 and that was enough to tell the Osters what to do. Werner had already been picked up by the Nazis once and placed in Dachau Concentration Camp between 1938 and 1939.
During my life, WWII had started in Europe on September 1, 1939 with Hitler invading Poland, a country with a high Jewish population, some of which were our relatives, though unknown to us then. In the USA, the war was declared on December 7, 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I was 7 years old at the time.
My whole childhood has memories of the inconsequential effects of this war on me; that of being a big participant of our weekly paper drive-bringing newspapers to our school to be weighed and reused. Other activities were cutting out cartoon jokes from magazines and making books for the soldiers to cheer them up. I spent all my time while drying the dishes with a dish towel dreaming up ways to end the war. It was my wishful occupation then.
1942 came along and finally I was a sister to a new baby brother, David. After 8 years of waiting for a brother or sister, I finally had one, but my mother was scared to death of bringing in a child after WWII had started in December 1941. He was born in August. Now Mom and I both had something good to think about other than the war and paper drives.
My father was able to obtain a bike for my Xmas gift somewhere during this period, which was hard to find. Yes, Jewish and a child celebrating Xmas customs. That was happening to Jews who by just being able to live-were undergoing an assimilation period that was inevitable. Note; not the religion but the in your face customs of the land that beckoned to children.. We had an Xmas tree in our living room. Joan, my Jewish neighbor girlfriend whose parents were from Palestine, managed to talk them into a tree in their basement. Who could deprive their children from visiting Toyland on Meier & Frank's 10th floor every year? It would have taken a big explanation and parents weren't up to it.
Our newspapers, and my family subscribed to both the morning Oregonian and the evening Journal, were only covering the war. I couldn't imagine what a newspaper would be like with other news in it. Thus, nothing was ever mentioned about Palestine and Jews. As a child, I never heard anything about it at Sunday School, either, unfortunately.
The war was over on September 2, 1945, 3 days before my 11th birthday. when I would start the 7th grade at Abernathy School around the corner where I had attended since Kindergarten.
I think I remember LIFE magazine's cover picture of a sailor kissing a girl then. At the time, my father had been working during the war at 2 jobs; one being his own wholesale meat business and the other in the shipyards as a boss with a crew. When he slept is a mystery to me. Now he could work full time on his business.
Rifles used in the USA in Alcatraz prison in 1948 were made from 1934 to 1942, so that may also be the case that the Haganah in Israel of rifles procured for their protection. The British had left the country on this date knowing that the Arabs were armed but hadn't allowed Jews to do so, and they been given the mandate to HELP the Jews in the development of the Jewish Homeland by the League of Nations. It turned out that they were a deterrent, not a help. Since 1929, when Jews were attacked in riots instigated by the Sherif of Jerusalem, an Arab, Jews had to come to the realization that they had to defend themselves, as the British didn't do it.
The birth of Israel was announced and this brought on the huge attack by the Arabs now called THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE which started on November 29, 1947 actually, when the Arabs responded with violence to the United Nations resolution on Palestine, and it lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949. I was 15 years old then, and was already going steady with a beau. I remember a double date we had where the other guy, Si, was talking about going to Israel to help fight. I still wasn't aware of the events going on, but he and his family were very much aware.
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II
http://www.notfrisco2.com/alcatraz/charts/firearms.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II
Update: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-roosevelt-meets-king-saud-at-bitter-lake-february-1945 (Thanks to Andree L.) a must read.
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| In Tel Aviv, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, stands under a portrait of Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, as he reads Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. This took place 70 years ago. |
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| Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my president of USA from 1933 before I was born to April 12, 1945 when he died and this was announced to us when in class at Abernathy School. I was 10 years old then. We all cried. He was our father figure. |
In May 1939, my future uncle Werner was one of the last Jews to get out of Germany and headed for the USA. Werner Oster was then 21 years old. His father had served in WWI as a German soldier. His family could only afford to get Werner out of the country. My great uncle Max had been his sponsor, getting him a job with my father. By September, he would marry my Aunt Anne. I was the very shy flower girl in the wedding.
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| About 1944, and Werner's on the right holding his 2nd daughter. His 1st daughter, Harriett, was born in 1941, standing with the overalls. My father is on the left holding my baby brother David, born in 1942. His brother in law is in the middle holding his 2nd daughter. His first, Dianne-standing, was born in 1938. I'm down on the left with Dianne, Harriett and Donnie, all cousins. |
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| My father, Meshke (Morris) and Me |
1942 came along and finally I was a sister to a new baby brother, David. After 8 years of waiting for a brother or sister, I finally had one, but my mother was scared to death of bringing in a child after WWII had started in December 1941. He was born in August. Now Mom and I both had something good to think about other than the war and paper drives.
My father was able to obtain a bike for my Xmas gift somewhere during this period, which was hard to find. Yes, Jewish and a child celebrating Xmas customs. That was happening to Jews who by just being able to live-were undergoing an assimilation period that was inevitable. Note; not the religion but the in your face customs of the land that beckoned to children.. We had an Xmas tree in our living room. Joan, my Jewish neighbor girlfriend whose parents were from Palestine, managed to talk them into a tree in their basement. Who could deprive their children from visiting Toyland on Meier & Frank's 10th floor every year? It would have taken a big explanation and parents weren't up to it.
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| 1946, ship heading for Palestine with refugees brought by Haganah Secretly |
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| Remembering the USA Marines in the Battle of Iwo Jima capturing island from Japan-February 19, 1945 to March 26, 1945 |
Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II
http://www.notfrisco2.com/alcatraz/charts/firearms.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States_during_World_War_II
Update: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/president-roosevelt-meets-king-saud-at-bitter-lake-february-1945 (Thanks to Andree L.) a must read.
Labels: family, Haganah, Israel, My bio, Portland, Roosevelt, War of Independence, WWII
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Illegal Refugee, Relative of My Relative: Josef Rosin
Nadene Goldfoot
Josef Rosin was an illegal Jewish refugee to Palestine from Lithuania. He was the relative of my newly found relative, Joel Alpert, also from Lithuania. They were Litvaks. My grandfather and grandmother were also from Lithuania, only they had left earlier in the very late 1800s. Israel was re-born for Jews on May 14, 1948 who were under dire straights then and needed to have a Jewish Homeland where they could live in peace without worry of being killed.
Josef Rosin was denied the very place our Jewish Homeland was created for by people who would become the European Union and the USA; the Allies of WWI. He was a young engineer student who had already finished his 1st year of college, and his world was caving in on him!
Only Josef wanted to enter Palestine legally by the end of March, 1945 but had to sneak in. It was already a miracle that he was still alive after the Holocaust which killed 6 million Jews. He knew that there had been Jewish leaders who had met with the Allies since the end of the First World War and all had been decided. England held the mandate since then and had it for 30 years. Remember the movie, EXODUS of 1960 with Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint? It was a similar situation.
The BALFOUR DECLARATION happened on November 2, 1917, saying that the British government showed sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations and pledged support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. They were issued the Palestine Mandate on July 24, 1922. After 2,000 years of waiting, they were to have their own homeland! It was to be up with the Brits leaving their policing of the land on May 14, 1948, but here it was for him, 1945, the end of WWII, and Jews weren't allowed! .
He had been through so much already. It was as if to have reached heaven, and be turned back. To what? To a hell! He had already left Lithuania and had gone through frightening days of illegal travel there through Poland, Slovakia, Rumania, Hungary, Austria and Italy. He had arrived in Eretz Yisrael on October 24, 1945 on the ship of "Ma'apilim", which means Illegal Immigrants.
Life was actually pretty exciting for the young man that he was with all this illegal movement through countries. He married Peninah Cypkewitz from Wloclawek, Poland, whose path had been equally dangerous during a stay in Rumania.
Of course, the Jews of Palestine accepted and protected illegal Jews, knowing the circumstance and hating the English for it. Josef and Peninah lived on a kibbutz, Beith-Zera in the Jordan Valley for 9 months. In the autumn of 1946 they moved to Haifa where he wanted to continue his studies at the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Technion.
He was accepted as a 2nd year student, but had a year of delay at attending, because the WAR OF INDEPENDENCE broke out. This started on November 29, 1947 when Arabs responded with violence to the new United Nations resolution on Palestine, and it lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949, after the Brits had left the land on May 14, 1948. They had left and had left the Jews without arms to defend themselves.
Here Josef was, having lived through the horrors of Europe, the rounding up of Jews everywhere and killing them in horrendous ways, and now the Arabs had refused to accept the UN partition resolution, so from April 1948, units of Arab irregulars had crossed into the country from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, to reinforce the local Arabs in their attacks on the Jewish villages and towns in an attempt to block the main roads.
Upon the announcement that Jews had created the land into their state on May 14, 1948, Israel was invaded by the regular professional armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and also a Saudi-Arabian contingent. The very next day, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azszam Pasha, announced from Cairo, "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and Crusades!" Yes, Jews had lived in places where the Mongolians had attacked with Genghis Khan and his ilk, and before that the Crusaders had even invaded their homes while on their horses and killed their wives and children before their eyes, as what happened to another of my relatives. Josef had escaped from one extermination attempt that almost succeeded completely only to step into another!
At this time, there were only 650,000 Jews and its pathetic army was of course poorly equipped, but they DROVE BACK THE INVADING FORCES. Now how, you can figure it out. They had a reason to survive and were determined without an ounce of fear in their bones. G-d was on their side as he was during the Exodus. RIGHT wins over MIGHT.
Josef was again surrounded by death. 6,000 new Israelis were killed in this War of Independence, more than in all the subsequent wars combined.
Josef recalled his young life. He was born in Kybartai, Lithuania on January 24, 1922 to Yehudah Leib Rosin from Sudargas, Lithuania and Hayah Leibovitz from Marijampole, Lithuania. They had owned their own business, a paper and stationary shop in Kibart, Lithuania, which was a town. He went to school in Kibart, and in the towns of Virbalis and Marijampole. From 1939 to 1941 he had attended the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Kovno (Kaunas) University.
Josef had left home 2 days before the German invasion in the USSR, and Lithuania was part of USSR. His parents and sister had stayed in Kibart and hadn't left like he had and were caught and murdered with all the other Jews of the town in July 1941. Josef had reached the Kovno Ghetto and stayed there for more than 2 1/2 years until the beginning of February 1944. He escaped and went into the woods of the Rudniki forests and later went into the Naliboki forests in Belarus. He stayed there until the liberation by the Red Army. In August 1944, he returned to Kovno. By the end of March 1945, he joined a group of young Lithuanian Jews who were determined that they all should get out of Europe and get into their Eretz Yisrael. They intended to become part of the movement later called the Brikha (Flight movement).
He and his cousin, Joel Alpert, wrote a Remembrance Book, "PRESERVING OUR LITVAK HERITAGE-A HISTORY OF 31 JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN LITHUANIA. Being my grandparents were from 2 of the towns written about in this book, I'm sure they would thank them. I thank them for writing about my Nathan Abraham Goldfus's town of Telsiai (Telz), Lithuania in the north and Zlata Jermulowske's town of Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania on the eastern border, which was so close to the border of Poland that it was included in Poland in a division of land later.
I know I'm related to Joel Alpert because of the DNA familyfinder test finding so many Alpert matches for me and my living relatives who have also been tested. This allows us to be part of the Halpern & Branches group on Family Tree DNA. If Joel were able to test, I'm sure he would be one of them, so I'll check.
I just checked FTDNA and my paternal 1st cousin and I am related to 5 Alperts while my brother is related to 6, and a Joel Alpert is one of them for my brother and myself! He and we are 5th cousins with me sharing 60.70cMs over 18 segments. Our largest segment shared is 8.11cMs. We share 1700 SNPs. That's enough sharing of genes to tell me that way back, we shared a common ancestor. Of course! We have roots from Lithuania. How amazing to have such a distant relative and realize how lucky I am. I'll most likely never know who this common ancestor is because Lithuania, though they kept good records for their own reasons, didn't think of women enough to include their surnames in their census listings like they did the men. Women make it on the records of the USA by the 1850 census. My 1st cousin matches Rosinger of Hungary, but not a Rosin of Lithuanian roots. I didn't. The luck of the draw at birth as to what genes you inherit. You never know.
One of the leaders of our DNA group is also an Alpert who matches us and Joel. In fact, the group was created around this connection. Finding us and being able to communicate knowing our ancestors were related is one of the miracles of living in this scientific century. We have come together again.
Resource: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, Editor-by JewishGen,Inc.
Facts About Israel by division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.
Family Tree DNA, Houston, Texas
.
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| Josef Rosin b: January 24, 1922 in Kybartai, Lithuania cousin of my cousin, Joel Alpert |
Josef Rosin was an illegal Jewish refugee to Palestine from Lithuania. He was the relative of my newly found relative, Joel Alpert, also from Lithuania. They were Litvaks. My grandfather and grandmother were also from Lithuania, only they had left earlier in the very late 1800s. Israel was re-born for Jews on May 14, 1948 who were under dire straights then and needed to have a Jewish Homeland where they could live in peace without worry of being killed.
 |
| Paul Newman, Peter Lawford in Exodus, trying to get the Jews on their ship passage into Palestine. |
The BALFOUR DECLARATION happened on November 2, 1917, saying that the British government showed sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations and pledged support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. They were issued the Palestine Mandate on July 24, 1922. After 2,000 years of waiting, they were to have their own homeland! It was to be up with the Brits leaving their policing of the land on May 14, 1948, but here it was for him, 1945, the end of WWII, and Jews weren't allowed! .
Life was actually pretty exciting for the young man that he was with all this illegal movement through countries. He married Peninah Cypkewitz from Wloclawek, Poland, whose path had been equally dangerous during a stay in Rumania.
Of course, the Jews of Palestine accepted and protected illegal Jews, knowing the circumstance and hating the English for it. Josef and Peninah lived on a kibbutz, Beith-Zera in the Jordan Valley for 9 months. In the autumn of 1946 they moved to Haifa where he wanted to continue his studies at the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Technion.
 |
| Hitler's Nazi leaders talking to Amin al Husseini, the Sherif of Jerusalem as to how to get rid of the Jews who were coming into Palestine |
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| Out of the Holocaust into the Fire on March 10, 1949 in another war; The War of Independence; for Israel |
Josef was again surrounded by death. 6,000 new Israelis were killed in this War of Independence, more than in all the subsequent wars combined.
Josef recalled his young life. He was born in Kybartai, Lithuania on January 24, 1922 to Yehudah Leib Rosin from Sudargas, Lithuania and Hayah Leibovitz from Marijampole, Lithuania. They had owned their own business, a paper and stationary shop in Kibart, Lithuania, which was a town. He went to school in Kibart, and in the towns of Virbalis and Marijampole. From 1939 to 1941 he had attended the Civil Engineering Faculty of the Kovno (Kaunas) University.
Josef had left home 2 days before the German invasion in the USSR, and Lithuania was part of USSR. His parents and sister had stayed in Kibart and hadn't left like he had and were caught and murdered with all the other Jews of the town in July 1941. Josef had reached the Kovno Ghetto and stayed there for more than 2 1/2 years until the beginning of February 1944. He escaped and went into the woods of the Rudniki forests and later went into the Naliboki forests in Belarus. He stayed there until the liberation by the Red Army. In August 1944, he returned to Kovno. By the end of March 1945, he joined a group of young Lithuanian Jews who were determined that they all should get out of Europe and get into their Eretz Yisrael. They intended to become part of the movement later called the Brikha (Flight movement).
I just checked FTDNA and my paternal 1st cousin and I am related to 5 Alperts while my brother is related to 6, and a Joel Alpert is one of them for my brother and myself! He and we are 5th cousins with me sharing 60.70cMs over 18 segments. Our largest segment shared is 8.11cMs. We share 1700 SNPs. That's enough sharing of genes to tell me that way back, we shared a common ancestor. Of course! We have roots from Lithuania. How amazing to have such a distant relative and realize how lucky I am. I'll most likely never know who this common ancestor is because Lithuania, though they kept good records for their own reasons, didn't think of women enough to include their surnames in their census listings like they did the men. Women make it on the records of the USA by the 1850 census. My 1st cousin matches Rosinger of Hungary, but not a Rosin of Lithuanian roots. I didn't. The luck of the draw at birth as to what genes you inherit. You never know.
One of the leaders of our DNA group is also an Alpert who matches us and Joel. In fact, the group was created around this connection. Finding us and being able to communicate knowing our ancestors were related is one of the miracles of living in this scientific century. We have come together again.
Resource: Preserving Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, Editor-by JewishGen,Inc.
Facts About Israel by division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.
Family Tree DNA, Houston, Texas
.
Labels: 1948, Alpert, Balfour Declaration, British mandate, holocaust, illegal refugees, Israel, Josef Rosin, Lithuania, May 114, Palestine, War of Independence
