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my>nnn mnn Claims Conference Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany O / Claims Conference Holocaust Survivor Memoir Collection Access to the print and/or digital copies of memoirs in this collection is made possible by USHMM on behalf of, and with the support of, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Library respects the copyright and intellectual property rights associated with the materials in its collection. The Library holds the rights and permissions to put this material online. If you hold an active copyright to this work and would like to have your materials removed from the web please contact the USHMM Library by phone at 202-479-9717, or by email at [email protected]. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc. https://archive.org/details/outfromashesmyli01merm Out from the Ashes My Life Story Joan Feuerman Mermelstein Out from the Ashes My Life Story Joan Feuerman Mermelstein <^u rv) ttvL/ ^ AwcXt V L . ir . CXy^j \V6 G°n Contents FORWARD. 1 MY FAMILY . 3 EARLY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES. 9 STORIES FROM MY CHILDHOOD. 18 GROWING UP. 23 SCHOOLDAYS. 28 RISE OF FASCISM IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA. 32 DEPORTATION TO CONCENTRATION CAMP . 39 LIBERATION. 50 A NEW LIFE. 68 MAX’S STORY . 72 CHILDREN . 75 ISRAEL. 86 OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IN CINCINNATI . 89 REMEMBRANCE . 92 APPENDIX 1: JEWISH LIFE IN THE CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS ... 105 APPENDIX 2: FAMILY NAMES . 108 GLOSSARY. 110 FORWARD We, Jews, are a small people in a wide world. We have faced dispersion, hate, pogroms and massacres, while continuing to struggle for survival. But we are also a people rich in traditions, with a heritage of spiritual, national and universal values which we contributed in full measure to mankind. Remembrance serves many purposes. It is important to look back not only to the endless path of Jewish martyrdom, full of persecutions and death, but also to the rich lives that our relatives and ancestors lived. The Holocaust not only wiped out six million lives, but it destroyed a whole way of life, and changed, forever, the lives of those who survived. Remembrance helps us look back and wonder how different the fate of Holocaust victims and survivors would have been if the western leaders of those days would have had the stamina to stand up to Adolf Hitler's appetite for territorial expansion and wild dreams of enslaving all nations he could conquer to create the Third Reich. This insanity could have been stopped in time, but it was not. The leaders of Britain and France wanted to believe that they could reason with Hitler until they finally came to realize that they were dealing with a monster. By this time. Hitler had managed to build a powerful War Machine. It took six years of bloody battles with millions of casualties and billions of dollars to put an end to the Nazi nightmare. Before the madness, I was a young girl, burning with hope of becoming a teacher and in love with a young man, a dental student. He was murdered as was my beloved family and all my dreams. Somehow, I survived... but, oh, how different my life would have been... 1 Now we can see with admiration and pride the miracle of the eternity of the Jewish people — of our lives rebuilt and of the rebirth of the State of Israel. While carrying the inner burning and suffering of the past, the Jewish people, including survivors of the Holocaust like me, stand tall today with Israel in the center of the Jewish present and future. We know that our martyrs did not perish without a dream, because above the smoke of the crematoria, they saw the coming of rebirth. Out of the ashes, the dream of Jerusalem became a reality in our generation. 2