מאגר סיפורי מורשת

My Savta, Rachel Leah Schwartz, was born in Manhattan, New York, in the United States of America, on March 24th, 1935. The Hebrew date was the 19th of Adar II. So in March 2015 she will be 80 years old but on the Hebrew calendar she will be 23 because Adar II does not happen every year. She has an older sister who wanted their mother to throw my Savta in the garbage pail because she wanted their mother (my great-grandmother, Breindel, for who I am named) for herself.

Growing up, my Savta’s family consisted of her mother, father, sister and herself. Her grandparents on her mother’s side had come to America from Poland, (her grandfather came first and then he sent money for his wife & children to come). Luckily this was before World War II. Her grandparents lived in lower Manhattan, in a tenement building, and were very poor. My Savta’s mother and my Savta’s aunts & uncle all had to leave school at a young age so that they could get jobs and give whatever money they earned to their parents. Her grandparents on her father’s side remained in Poland after her father immigrated to America and his entire family, except for one brother, was killed in the Shoah.

My Savta’s parents owned a coffee-shop. They called it a luncheonette. They worked very long hours from early morning to late at night. When my Savta and her sister were young, they would play in the back of the coffee shop. As they grew older they would do their homework there, until they were old enough to go from school to their apartment. Since my Savta and her sister spent so much time together as children, they have always had a very close relationship which continues until today.

When my Savta was about 6 years old the doctor said she and her sister both needed to have their tonsils removed. Savta did not want to have the procedure done on her first and she was assured by the doctor and his nurse that they would operate on the older child (her sister) first. However, on the day of the surgery they carried her into the operating room before her sister and she cried and screamed. She remembers to this day how terrified she was and how betrayed she felt. When she revived after the anesthesia she said, "I was not supposed to be first." Her mother gave her ice cream to soothe her throat and she soon was no longer angry, however, she still remembers the incident.