One Family’s Journey from the Holocaust

Mom survived the Holocaust in Italy. As a 12 year old, I visited Italy for the first time. I had no concept of how it was for her there. She painted a nice picture of her first year in Genoa with her family. She finished high school, her father taught Hebrew, her sisters had jobs. They lived in an apartment on Via Columbo.
But then in 1940, everything changed. Her father was sent to an internment camp, the rest went down South to a village called Oppido Lucano. They were there a few years.
Mom had to report to the police station daily on behalf of her family. Sometimes, they had to go into hiding when the German Nazis searched for Jews throughout Italy for The Final Solution.
But what was it like the rest of the time?

Recently, a storm came through Long Island. We lost electricity. We just had to make do.

For a few years, Mom had to make do. Clothes were a necessity. Whatever Mom had was what she had to wear. Personal hygiene had to be a struggle. Getting medical care, having enough food were hardships.
And what the future held was simply unknown.

As the storm here in August of 2020 randomly destroyed, nobody knew what would be.
To have no control, no say over your own destiny is hard.

When Nazism spread through Europe like Cancer, as Jews especially had to make do with less and less, many wondered whether there was a future. Whether suffering was just going to continue.
Conditions got worse and worse. Jews lost all basic rights. They were segregated, denied proper shelter, not given enough to eat.
Dead bodies laid on sidewalks. People just stepped around them. Patients treated for curable diseases previously were allowed to just die.
But in Italy, where Mom’s family was, attempts were made to help them. Food was shared. Basic shelter was provided. Maybe only worn out clothes were available, but it was better than nothing.
And my grandfather was permitted to rejoin his family because it was felt he was too old to endure conditions in an internment camp.
Humanity was in play here.
But hair had to stay dirty for longer, shoes had holes in them, and blankets were used to keep the cold out.
Then things got worse at Ferramonti Concentration Camp. It wasn’t a death camp. It wasn’t even a labour camp. But there were mosquitoes, with no net to sleep under. Food was scare, medical care was not denied, there simply were no supplies.

Mom got Malaria.

What saved her were the liberating Allied troops who had medicine to save her.
It was on to an American internment camp. Conditions were better there with ample food and medical care. Some like Mom got to go to school outside the camp during the day.
But the future remained uncertain at best.
They were to be sent back to Europe at war’s end.
Then suddenly everything changed again with the death of FDR. Harry Truman let them stay by a loophole of letting them re-enter America through Niagara Falls, Canada under the existing immigration quota of 1946. Mom and her family left and reentered on February 3, 1946, to begin a new life.

Mom and her family went to Rhode Island.
No, nothing was given to them. Mom and her two sisters had to take jobs in a jewellery factory.
They had to take a tenement with many steps their parents could not climb.
There was no car, no luxuries, just the basics.
Then Mom married. She no longer had to work in a factory. Her husband owned the tenement they lived in. They lived on the first floor. Mom could go grocery shopping for food. She could buy a new dress.
When she was pregnant, there was a doctor to see. She wore maternity clothes. Her husband took her for rides in the car. They got television when it became available.
When her brother came to America from Israel, he worked and could provide better for their parents. He moved them to a first floor apartment so they could walk outside sometimes. The father could go to synagogue services again.
But when Mom’s older sister died, the parents had to go to the Jewish Home of the Aged. They were cared for there, but they both declined. Too many years had been spent in confinement.
They both died in 1962, months apart.
My Mom enjoyed getting fresh fruit daily when the move was made to the suburbs. She liked going to laundromat. She wanted to rake the leaves and shovel the snow.
She never learned how to cook but there were tv dinners, and meat that was not cooked right. There was pasta, potatoes, and bread to put on the table.
Mom bought a new winter coat. She could change her clothes daily. Anything worn out was thrown out.
Mom enjoyed everything, perhaps she had done without for so long.
No, I can’t exactly say how Mom felt when she had to make do and when she no longer had to make do.

But whenever I lose electricity in a storm, I am reminded of that time in my Mom’s life.
My despair is nothing compared to what she experienced. I don’t do well, as I feel isolated, depressed, and dirty. Yet I must consider Mom went on like this not for days, but for years.
I should be grateful when the power gets restored, but what Mom endured lingers with me awhile longer. It takes awhile for me to just snap out of it.