Kestenberg Archive

IH was born in Lodz in April 1939. Her father was the youngest of eight children in an Orthodox family. He worked as a car mechanic after leaving school at 14. IH's mother was the youngest of three sisters in a more affluent family in Cracow. She was artistic, and worked designing and selling hats. They married in 1938. When the war broke out, IH's father fled to Lithuania and he sent home care packages from there. IH has no memories of her mother at all. In 1940, her mother's sister, pretending to be a Christian, took IH to a local priest for safe-keeping, saying that the family were experiencing problems. IH was placed with nuns in a cloister with other children in similar situations, but no one knew she was Jewish. IH recalls her few memories of the convent, and states she does not remember bad treatment. She learnt to be a religiously devout Christian. IH's father was liberated from a concentration camp in Germany by the Russians. He made contact with his brother-in-law who knew that IH was in the convent. He did not have the strength himself to travel to Poland to rescue her, but he met another woman going to rescue her son and he paid her to collect IH as well. ; The convent was reluctant to let IH go, but with the help of Russian soldiers the woman was successful. IH remembers travelling to Germany by train with the woman and her son, and having to sleep in a forest after crossing the border. IH does not remember the reunion with her father but she states she had no memory of him at the time. When he told her that she was Jewish, it was a big shock and she felt very guilty as she had been taught that Jews had killed Jesus Christ. IH's mother died during the war, but they never discovered the details. IH and her father lived together with the other woman and her son as a family for a while, in Munich. IH attended a local German school for a short time, and then went to the Hebrew school. IH's father desperately wanted to get to America, and thought he had a greater chance in France. They went to France for nine months, but returned to Germany. IH's aunt, who had placed her with the priest, died a year after liberation. ; IH and her father arrived in America in 1949. At first, they lived in the Bronx with her uncle and aunt. IH's uncle died soon after they arrived and they moved to live in a rented room. IH was close to her father, he was affectionate and protective. Her father eventually worked in a Lever Brothers Factory, a business he had worked for before the war. They moved to New Jersey, into their own apartment. IH was in charge of all the housework and cooking, it was stressful and she developed a stutter. IH states she was a normal child and rebelled like any other teenager in the 1950s. IH graduated from high school and went to Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, where she majored in Art Education. Her father married three times in America, none of them lasting for very long. She returned to live with her father after college, but found it difficult as she wanted her freedom and he was domineering and rigid. When IH began dating her husband, her father disapproved of him and she moved out. After they got engaged, her father accepted him and over the years they became close. IH is now very close to her father, they speak every day. IH and her husband have a son and a daughter, with whom she seldom speaks about her war experiences. She believes she is overprotective due to her own experiences and her lack of a mother. IH discusses the switch between her Christian and Jewish identity, saying that it was only really when she got married that her Jewish identity fully developed.