Teacher Survived Some Hard Lessons

I was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1921. I remember the night in 1933 when Hitler came to power. My stepfather, to me he was my father, started to cry and he said that this was a revolution like when the Communists came into power in Russia. He was very afraid as to what was going to happen to the Jews.

My stepfather was deported to Poland in the spring of ’39 and then my mother had to follow with my brother. So my family didn’t get out; they got gassed by the Nazis. My brother was 13 years old.

I would have never made it out either, but because my natural father was German I was German and I couldn’t go with my mother and brother to Poland.

There were some Jewish organizations that helped kids to get out of Germany and the girls could get out if they wanted to become a maid. You did anything to save your life. As I arrived in London, the Second World War started.

I hated being a maid. I remember when I used to have to chop these big blocks of coal to light the fires. And I was always cold. You’d stand in front of a fireplace and you were hot in front and cold in the back. I used to have to do baseboards with a toothbrush. They paid me $2 a week.

I came to the States in May, 1940. I reached New York in the morning, and I remember seeing the Statue of Liberty and just being extremely happy that I had finally come to where I had been wanting to go and just to be free from fear, which is what I grew up with.

I used to have nightmares for years. I don’t anymore because it’s been a long time. I grew up with fear and with this huge inferiority complex. Like when you are a little kid and they call you ‘dirty Jew’ and that sort of thing.

I was very short and very precocious, and that didn’t help. So you never get over those complexes. I mean, if I didn’t get A’s at UCLA, I used to think I was a complete failure, if that tells you anything.

I came out here in the early ‘40s. After our youngest daughter went to kindergarten, I started going to junior college, then I went to UCLA. I taught for six years and went back to UCLA and got a master’s degree.

I did have an advantage with German being my native language, and I started French. I guess when I started back to school I must have thought right away that I wanted to teach.

My mother always used to say, the only thing they cannot take away from you is your education.

To me to be a teacher meant just that. You teach them something for life. Whether they ever use the language itself or not, it’s the discipline for life that the kids learn.

I relate to people, that’s always been my strength. I like people and they know it, and somehow it feeds back. That’s the key. It isn’t just, ‘Here you are, a student, I’m here to teach you.’ I like you as a person.

I did things with them. I went to German camp with kids, where they spoke only German, I went out to dinner with them. We went to concerts, we went to French movies, theater, whatever was available.

I treat them as human beings, not like most teen-agers who a lot of people feel are obnoxious. They’re not. I like that age group.

To do something for humanity, I guess it sounds corny, but basically that’s one of my concerns. I mean, you can’t save the world, but you can do a little bit on your own. To me, that’s what matters. To do whatever little bit you can.