Family Story from Ruth Schaerf (Sharvit) Sternbach
Page 3
Surviving
the Romanian Holocaust: Below are published links detailing the
survival of our family.
http://www.romanianjewish.org/ro/index_scharf.html (versiunea romaneasca)
http://www.romanianjewish.org/en/index_scharf.html (English version)
My father and mother tried to help with money to people who were sent to Transnistria, without distinction if they were from our family or not. A lot of survivor people, after the war, came to my father to thank him for his remarkable fact. People from our family, which survived Transnistria, lived with us, in our apartment, in Czernovitz, for a long time.
My mother and me 1941, with the
Yellow Star
My uncle Josef Ziegler had a friend, Lina Sherban, which I called her Inbas, when I was 3 years old. She was Christian. They decided to leave Czernowitz, and to flee to Romania. In this time Czernowitz was under Russian occupation. It was a dangerous operation.
On the Russian side were the border police with bloodhounds, they shoot down every thing which moved, then was the "Niemandsland" ("No man's land") and on the other side the Rumanian border police. If they succeed to arrive to Romania they had to write home a postcard "Gut angekommen" (Good arrive) and also "Inima de leu", that means Lion Heart. This was the code. Indeed, after few weeks the postcard arrived, the family was so happy that all of them forgot that the password is missing. After other few weeks a man came to my mother to bring her a letter from her brother, from the prison.
So began a period when my mother went daily to the prison, charged with pots filled with food and presents for the jailors. Josef told my mother what happened. When he and Inbas walked toward the frontier between Russia and Romania, they were captured by the frontier guards with bloodhounds. They began to shoot around, the people which want to flee began to run, someone fall down and the frontier guards arrested them. And we never heard again from Inbas- Lina Sherban. She disappeared.
My mother looked for some connection to free his brother from the prison and to help him to pass the border to Romania. And she found the prison's doctor, Lina Lenova, a Jewish woman. My mother began to give her presents and she enabled to send packets to her brother. After other few months, my mother asks her what she wants in order to help her brother to flee from the prison and to pass the border to Romania. My mother offered her the key from our apartment and promised her not to enter there again, inclusive the whole contents.
The prison's doctor answered: "I will take this key, because I have a Jewish heart" and the deal was closed!
In 1945 my father Jacob Schärf found a possibility to move to Romania and in a snowy winter evening, we climb in a truck and, through a dense forest and muddy routes, with cart carried by bulls, we arrived in Romania and settled us in Bacau, a town in the Northern part of Moldova.
My father’s youngest brother, Moritz Schärf, had gone to study in France, where he had got his degree as a mechanical engineer. He had married Denise Hermerel (a Christian woman) and had settled in France. At the end of the war, in 1946, my father Jacob Schärf found out that Moritz Schärf had perished at Auschwitz.
Following research made about Moritz Schaerf, in the years 2000/2010, it seems that he was arrested in 1942 (1st of may) in retaliation of actions of Resistance fighters against German soldiers. He was in jail in Compiègne (exactly the camp of Royallieu) within the 3rd of May and the 6th of July ; then after 48 hours of travel with hot weather, they arrived in Auschwitz and the 9th in Birkenau. The days which follow should have been a terrible torment and he dies the last days of this month for an unknown reason.
Moritz Schärf perished in Auschwitz
Dr. Aziu Chaim Schärf operating
The brooch which my father, Iacob Schärf designed and performed in 1945, when he found out that his brother, Moritz Schärf, perished in the holocaust, in Auschwitz.
In Bacau, a village in the Northern part of Romania, we lived together with my grandparents, the parents of my mother, Cilly and Isac Ziegler. My father tried to find work and decided to open a jewelry atelier in the apartment. The clients began to come; it was a lot of work.
My parents didn't buy furniture's because we were "on the way to Palestina", so they commanded wood cases for this purpose. Then, the communist regime didn't allow working in private business, so my father enters in a Cooperative for different professions.
My grandparents Tilda (Mathilde Rostholder) and Kalman Schärf traveled to their biggest son, Chaim Aziu Schärf to France, Beausoleil, which worked as a surgeon. In 1958, when Aziu died, after a long and painful illness, the grandparents moved to their daughter Etti, which lived in Paris, and they died there, in 1961.
My grand parents, Cilly Henia and Isac Ziegler received the certificate to immigrate to Israel in 1950 and they leaved Romania. In Israel, they received a tent; they leaved there in a tent camp near Bat Yam for 3 long and hard years. My grandmother was 73 years old and my grandfather, 73.
My parents sent money every month for my grandparents and after 3 years living in the tent, they bought a small apartment with a small garden, 29 square meters grossly. They lived in very bad economic situation; despite that their 2 sons lived in Israel and they didn't make enough for the old people.
After receiving some "negatives" from the government, that means that they didn't allow us to immigrate to Israel, my parents bought some nice furniture, some rugs and we were waiting for the travel certificate to Israel.
I began to go to the kindergarten, then to the primary school and finally to the high school. In the third class of the primary school I became member in the Youth Organization "Pionieri", where the children had a lot of cultural and sportive activities, summer camps and everyone had to wear a red cravat. It was a very exiting and happy time for me and I enjoyed a lot all the "pionieri" activities.
Because I began early the school I finished the high school with the matriculation certificate at 16 years. I tried to be accepted to the Medicine Faculty, I succeeded the "written examination". I was asked by the Communist Party from the Medicine Faculty if I intend to travel to Israel, as my answer was "yes", I was rejected from the "oral examination" and this was the end of my essay to study medicine.
I had a lot of friends from the school, we made some nice activities, excursions, I can remark that I had a happy childhood. We felt some small anti-Semitic signs, but not personally, my friends and my parents friends were Jewish and Christians, as well. Until today, I have friends from my adolescence, in Romania and other countries in the word and we are in friendship connections.
In 1958 December, finally, we received the papers for immigrating to Israel. We leaved Romania in January 1959; we took the train from Curtici to Budapest, from Budapest to Wien, from Vienna to Napoli and from Napoli, with the ship Arza, (it was the last ship's sailing and then it was placed it to old iron) we arrive to Haifa at the 28 January 1959.
We arrived to Rischon le Zion, in the grandparent's apartment. There was a very small place, a few iron beds which served as sofa and for the night as beds, a table and 4 chairs with an empty ice refrigerator. After 3 days I arrived in Israel, a cousin from my father took me to a Kibbutz, because it was not food and any money at home, despite my parents sent money every month for the family, some relatives took the money and they didn't used it for my grandparents.
In the Kibbutz I met a group of "Olim Hadashim", new immigrants from different countries, like Poland, Syria, Lebanon and Romania. We worked 5 hours in the day and in the afternoon we learned Hebrew.
It was an interesting experience, but a very hard one. The "Kibutznikim", the people which lived there were nosy, arrogant and patronizing to the Olim, they didn't understand the difficulties to leave a home, the parents, the friends, the places where we grow up, an other climate, a new languish and to begin all from the beginning.
I worked at the orange plantation in the fruit picking, in the Children house, Baby hose, in the kitchen, for 5 hours every day. One day, when I worked in the kitchen, kitchen workers prepared pudding for the dessert, something new for the "olim hadashim"- new emigrants. The kitchen manager was a very unpleasant woman. She said, who will end the work, from the Olim, can receive more pudding and she directed us to a table with pudding cups. We were glad for this present and we began to eat. I remarked that in the pudding they are raisins. The other kitchen workers told us: No raisins in the pudding! So we checked what we eat and found out that they were not raisins, but flies which felt into the pudding. This was good enough for the Olim!!
I had not enough money for the bus to travel to Rischon le Zion, despite it was not far, approximately 20 minutes with the bus, and so, one afternoon my mother came to visit me. I invited her to eat with the Olim Hadashim in the kibbutz's dining hall. The next day, the Kibbutz manager called me to tell me not to bring more my mother to eat in the Kibbutz! This remark offended me a lot! It was a healthy Kibbutz with rich orange, plums and bananas plantation, with rich agriculture fields and I saw how many food they throw away every day.
After 5 month I returned to Rischon and my mother's cousin found for me a working place, not far from Rischon, in an office.
Two month later, I succeeded at the admission examine to the Technion, Israel's Polytechnic Institute to the Architecture faculty and I moved to Haifa, I lived in the Students' dormitory.
My grandfather Isac Ziegler died in 1961, in Rischon le Zion and my grandmother Cilly Henia (b.Wolf Bernstein) Ziegler died in 1974. My parents and grandparents are buried in the Old Cemetery in Rischon le Zion, near Shikun Hamizrach.
There I met my future husband Arie Sternbach (b. 5 August 1937 in Lwow, Poland), a holocaust survivor, emigrated from Poland. Arie studied at the Technion, Israel's Polytechnic Institute, mechanical engineering.
In 1941, when Arie was 4 years old, the Nazis collected all the academics Jewish people from Lvov in a forest and they shot down all of them. Between those people was also Aries' father, Izac Israel Sternbach (1900- 1941, Lvov- Poland).
Aries' mother Sofia Dym (1907- 1997) was born in Crosno- Poland and died in Haifa, Israel. During the 2 World war, Sofia Sternbach, Aries' mother, was obliged to transfer Arie to a Christian family in Kamionka, near Nowey Soncz, in order to survive and Sofia had to remain in Lwow, to nurse her very ill mother. Arie lived in the village for 3 years, as a Christian boy, and then, after the grandmother's dead, Sofia joined Arie in Nowey Soncz. After the war, Sofia and Arie lived in Bergen Belzen for two years, where she worked as a teacher, in the Jewish community and at the 1948 they immigrated to Israel.
Arie Sternbach in Bergen Belsen 1946
Next Page
http://www.romanianjewish.org/ro/index_scharf.html (versiunea romaneasca)
http://www.romanianjewish.org/en/index_scharf.html (English version)
My father and mother tried to help with money to people who were sent to Transnistria, without distinction if they were from our family or not. A lot of survivor people, after the war, came to my father to thank him for his remarkable fact. People from our family, which survived Transnistria, lived with us, in our apartment, in Czernovitz, for a long time.
My mother and me 1941, with the
Yellow Star
My uncle Josef Ziegler had a friend, Lina Sherban, which I called her Inbas, when I was 3 years old. She was Christian. They decided to leave Czernowitz, and to flee to Romania. In this time Czernowitz was under Russian occupation. It was a dangerous operation.
On the Russian side were the border police with bloodhounds, they shoot down every thing which moved, then was the "Niemandsland" ("No man's land") and on the other side the Rumanian border police. If they succeed to arrive to Romania they had to write home a postcard "Gut angekommen" (Good arrive) and also "Inima de leu", that means Lion Heart. This was the code. Indeed, after few weeks the postcard arrived, the family was so happy that all of them forgot that the password is missing. After other few weeks a man came to my mother to bring her a letter from her brother, from the prison.
So began a period when my mother went daily to the prison, charged with pots filled with food and presents for the jailors. Josef told my mother what happened. When he and Inbas walked toward the frontier between Russia and Romania, they were captured by the frontier guards with bloodhounds. They began to shoot around, the people which want to flee began to run, someone fall down and the frontier guards arrested them. And we never heard again from Inbas- Lina Sherban. She disappeared.
My mother looked for some connection to free his brother from the prison and to help him to pass the border to Romania. And she found the prison's doctor, Lina Lenova, a Jewish woman. My mother began to give her presents and she enabled to send packets to her brother. After other few months, my mother asks her what she wants in order to help her brother to flee from the prison and to pass the border to Romania. My mother offered her the key from our apartment and promised her not to enter there again, inclusive the whole contents.
The prison's doctor answered: "I will take this key, because I have a Jewish heart" and the deal was closed!
In 1945 my father Jacob Schärf found a possibility to move to Romania and in a snowy winter evening, we climb in a truck and, through a dense forest and muddy routes, with cart carried by bulls, we arrived in Romania and settled us in Bacau, a town in the Northern part of Moldova.
My father’s youngest brother, Moritz Schärf, had gone to study in France, where he had got his degree as a mechanical engineer. He had married Denise Hermerel (a Christian woman) and had settled in France. At the end of the war, in 1946, my father Jacob Schärf found out that Moritz Schärf had perished at Auschwitz.
Following research made about Moritz Schaerf, in the years 2000/2010, it seems that he was arrested in 1942 (1st of may) in retaliation of actions of Resistance fighters against German soldiers. He was in jail in Compiègne (exactly the camp of Royallieu) within the 3rd of May and the 6th of July ; then after 48 hours of travel with hot weather, they arrived in Auschwitz and the 9th in Birkenau. The days which follow should have been a terrible torment and he dies the last days of this month for an unknown reason.
Moritz Schärf perished in Auschwitz
Dr. Aziu Chaim Schärf operating
The brooch which my father, Iacob Schärf designed and performed in 1945, when he found out that his brother, Moritz Schärf, perished in the holocaust, in Auschwitz.
In Bacau, a village in the Northern part of Romania, we lived together with my grandparents, the parents of my mother, Cilly and Isac Ziegler. My father tried to find work and decided to open a jewelry atelier in the apartment. The clients began to come; it was a lot of work.
My parents didn't buy furniture's because we were "on the way to Palestina", so they commanded wood cases for this purpose. Then, the communist regime didn't allow working in private business, so my father enters in a Cooperative for different professions.
My grandparents Tilda (Mathilde Rostholder) and Kalman Schärf traveled to their biggest son, Chaim Aziu Schärf to France, Beausoleil, which worked as a surgeon. In 1958, when Aziu died, after a long and painful illness, the grandparents moved to their daughter Etti, which lived in Paris, and they died there, in 1961.
My grand parents, Cilly Henia and Isac Ziegler received the certificate to immigrate to Israel in 1950 and they leaved Romania. In Israel, they received a tent; they leaved there in a tent camp near Bat Yam for 3 long and hard years. My grandmother was 73 years old and my grandfather, 73.
My parents sent money every month for my grandparents and after 3 years living in the tent, they bought a small apartment with a small garden, 29 square meters grossly. They lived in very bad economic situation; despite that their 2 sons lived in Israel and they didn't make enough for the old people.
After receiving some "negatives" from the government, that means that they didn't allow us to immigrate to Israel, my parents bought some nice furniture, some rugs and we were waiting for the travel certificate to Israel.
I began to go to the kindergarten, then to the primary school and finally to the high school. In the third class of the primary school I became member in the Youth Organization "Pionieri", where the children had a lot of cultural and sportive activities, summer camps and everyone had to wear a red cravat. It was a very exiting and happy time for me and I enjoyed a lot all the "pionieri" activities.
Because I began early the school I finished the high school with the matriculation certificate at 16 years. I tried to be accepted to the Medicine Faculty, I succeeded the "written examination". I was asked by the Communist Party from the Medicine Faculty if I intend to travel to Israel, as my answer was "yes", I was rejected from the "oral examination" and this was the end of my essay to study medicine.
I had a lot of friends from the school, we made some nice activities, excursions, I can remark that I had a happy childhood. We felt some small anti-Semitic signs, but not personally, my friends and my parents friends were Jewish and Christians, as well. Until today, I have friends from my adolescence, in Romania and other countries in the word and we are in friendship connections.
In 1958 December, finally, we received the papers for immigrating to Israel. We leaved Romania in January 1959; we took the train from Curtici to Budapest, from Budapest to Wien, from Vienna to Napoli and from Napoli, with the ship Arza, (it was the last ship's sailing and then it was placed it to old iron) we arrive to Haifa at the 28 January 1959.
We arrived to Rischon le Zion, in the grandparent's apartment. There was a very small place, a few iron beds which served as sofa and for the night as beds, a table and 4 chairs with an empty ice refrigerator. After 3 days I arrived in Israel, a cousin from my father took me to a Kibbutz, because it was not food and any money at home, despite my parents sent money every month for the family, some relatives took the money and they didn't used it for my grandparents.
In the Kibbutz I met a group of "Olim Hadashim", new immigrants from different countries, like Poland, Syria, Lebanon and Romania. We worked 5 hours in the day and in the afternoon we learned Hebrew.
It was an interesting experience, but a very hard one. The "Kibutznikim", the people which lived there were nosy, arrogant and patronizing to the Olim, they didn't understand the difficulties to leave a home, the parents, the friends, the places where we grow up, an other climate, a new languish and to begin all from the beginning.
I worked at the orange plantation in the fruit picking, in the Children house, Baby hose, in the kitchen, for 5 hours every day. One day, when I worked in the kitchen, kitchen workers prepared pudding for the dessert, something new for the "olim hadashim"- new emigrants. The kitchen manager was a very unpleasant woman. She said, who will end the work, from the Olim, can receive more pudding and she directed us to a table with pudding cups. We were glad for this present and we began to eat. I remarked that in the pudding they are raisins. The other kitchen workers told us: No raisins in the pudding! So we checked what we eat and found out that they were not raisins, but flies which felt into the pudding. This was good enough for the Olim!!
I had not enough money for the bus to travel to Rischon le Zion, despite it was not far, approximately 20 minutes with the bus, and so, one afternoon my mother came to visit me. I invited her to eat with the Olim Hadashim in the kibbutz's dining hall. The next day, the Kibbutz manager called me to tell me not to bring more my mother to eat in the Kibbutz! This remark offended me a lot! It was a healthy Kibbutz with rich orange, plums and bananas plantation, with rich agriculture fields and I saw how many food they throw away every day.
After 5 month I returned to Rischon and my mother's cousin found for me a working place, not far from Rischon, in an office.
Two month later, I succeeded at the admission examine to the Technion, Israel's Polytechnic Institute to the Architecture faculty and I moved to Haifa, I lived in the Students' dormitory.
My grandfather Isac Ziegler died in 1961, in Rischon le Zion and my grandmother Cilly Henia (b.Wolf Bernstein) Ziegler died in 1974. My parents and grandparents are buried in the Old Cemetery in Rischon le Zion, near Shikun Hamizrach.
There I met my future husband Arie Sternbach (b. 5 August 1937 in Lwow, Poland), a holocaust survivor, emigrated from Poland. Arie studied at the Technion, Israel's Polytechnic Institute, mechanical engineering.
In 1941, when Arie was 4 years old, the Nazis collected all the academics Jewish people from Lvov in a forest and they shot down all of them. Between those people was also Aries' father, Izac Israel Sternbach (1900- 1941, Lvov- Poland).
Aries' mother Sofia Dym (1907- 1997) was born in Crosno- Poland and died in Haifa, Israel. During the 2 World war, Sofia Sternbach, Aries' mother, was obliged to transfer Arie to a Christian family in Kamionka, near Nowey Soncz, in order to survive and Sofia had to remain in Lwow, to nurse her very ill mother. Arie lived in the village for 3 years, as a Christian boy, and then, after the grandmother's dead, Sofia joined Arie in Nowey Soncz. After the war, Sofia and Arie lived in Bergen Belzen for two years, where she worked as a teacher, in the Jewish community and at the 1948 they immigrated to Israel.
Arie Sternbach in Bergen Belsen 1946
Next Page