From Poland to Brooklyn: The Lives of My Grandparents,
Two Holocaust Survivors

By Steven Keslowitz

Written by the grandson of two Holocaust survivors, From Poland to Brooklyn provides a new and insightful analysis of the Holocaust. The book includes thought-provoking quotations from law professors, historians, civil libertarians, and Holocaust survivors.

My grandparents, Leon and Cecilie Matzner, are two of the individuals who survived the Holocaust against incredible odds. This book recounts their lives and experiences in Poland before, during, and after the Holocaust. The book also recounts their courageous journey to America and their lives in Brooklyn, New York. Their hearts and minds are replete with hope and bravery, and, above all, a spirit that could not be broken-even by the most horrific tragedy the world has ever seen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595909988

Steven Keslowitz

Steven Keslowitz is a Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School and Executive Editor of the Cardozo Law Review. Steven is a graduate of the CUNY Honors College at Brooklyn College. He is the author of The World According to The Simpsons: What Our Favorite TV Family Says About Life, Love, and the Pursuit of the Perfect Donut (published in English and Portuguese); From Poland to Brooklyn: The Lives of My Grandparents, Two Holocaust Survivors; and The Simpsons, 24, and the Law: How Homer Simpson and Jack Bauer Influence Congressional Lawmaking and Judicial Reasoning. Steven's views on The Simpsons have been featured in more than 500 media outlets and is required reading at universities. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Copyright © 2008 by Steven Keslowitz

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ISBN: 978-0-595-46702-0 (pbk)

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Printed in the United States of America

I do believe, with all my heart, That God gave man the blessing and the curse. Man can select the curse of envy, hatred and prejudices, Or the blessing of love, harmony and beauty. Despite the painful curses of the past, In the blessing of the Creator, I do believe. ~ Excerpt from the poem entitled The Creed of a Holocaust Survivor, by Holocaust survivor Alexander Kimel

We need to look squarely at the dark side of human behaviour, at the same time, hold onto the vision of human possibility. (Snow, Mack, Burt, 1991)

Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander. ~ Michael Harrington, Yad Vashem

Dedication

This book is lovingly dedicated to Nana and Poppy, two remarkable people, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2006 and whose amazing lives are documented in this book; to my parents, Alan and Helene, who are the most wonderful, dedicated, kind, and loving parents in the world. What you have done for Justin and me can fill volumes; to my brother, Justin, who is the greatest brother I could ever have hoped for; to my grandparents’ parents, siblings, and other relatives many of whom were killed during the Holocaust; and to all of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust—our memories of your persecution will remain with us always. You will always be our brothers-in-arms, and will forever continue to serve as our inspiration to rid the world of hatred, inequality, and terror.

A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to various charities.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Foreword

Author’s Note about Sources

Introduction: Remembering the Holocaust

Part I:

The Life of Holocaust Survivor Cecilie Biber

Part II:

Reflections on Evil

Part III:

The Life of Leon Matzner

Part IV:

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Part V:

The Journey to America

Part VI:

Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in Poland and Germany During the Holocaust

Part VII:

Anti-Semitism in Germany and Poland After the Holocaust

Part VIII:

Life in America

Part IX:

My Grandparents Today

Part X:

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Contact Information

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the members of my family for their unyielding love, support, and company. I could not have asked for better people in my life. My mom, Helene—mere words cannot express how much we love you and how grateful we all are to have you. You truly are like the egg that holds the cake together (or, as Homer Simpson has said about Marge, the tape that holds the two halves of his car together). Thank you also for sifting through hundreds of pictures (along with dad and Justin) and selecting those for inclusion in this book as well as reading over drafts of the manuscript. My dad, Alan—without missing a beat, you are always there to help all of us and your efforts to encourage Justin and me to grow wiser helps us each and every day. We only hope that we can repay you by finding more Cookies and Cream donuts at our favorite resort for you. Justin—once again, you have managed to keep down the infernal racket while I wrote this book. And I am glad that as we both grow up, we continue to grow closer. You have it in you to do amazing things in life, and I hope that I can be of some help. (And I’m not talking about choosing baseball players in your fantasy league!) To my paternal grandmother, Florence, and Al—thank you for always providing me with a foundation of support and love. To the rest of my family, who I always enjoy spending time with.

And, finally, to Cecilie and Leon, my Nana and Poppy—without you there would be no account to document. Save for your perseverance, there would also be no family. But because of your hope, determination, and bravery, your family is here today—and watches you in admiration. Many years ago, you decided to start a family. And in the process, throughout the years, your love, kindness, and courage have made your family very proud.

Author’s Foreword

I wrote this book as a tribute to my grandparents, Leon and Cecilie Matzner. Throughout the years, my entire family—my mom, dad, brother, cousins, aunts, and uncles—has heard bits and pieces of my grandparents’ incredible lives during and after the Holocaust.

In the summer of 2006—several weeks before my grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary—I decided to conduct several interviews with both of my grandparents in an effort to document their remarkable and inspiring lives. This allowed me to chronicle their lives, and I decided to compile this information in print. Both of my grandparents encouraged me to pursue this project, and were eager to tell their complete accounts to me. After one of our conversations, my grandfather told me the following: I am so proud that I can talk to you about these things and that you understand it better than anybody [else]. I’m not sure that it’s true that I can actually understand or comprehend the horrors that Holocaust victims faced during World War II, but I am fortunate to have engaged in this undertaking as it has helped me to reflect on many aspects of their struggles. Recording their remarkable accounts has been an incredible learning experience, and I am glad that I was able to do this for my grandparents.

As I spoke to my grandparents, I felt a deep connection with my roots. I always knew that my grandparents had endured extremely difficult times during the Holocaust, but to hear the complete details of their accounts (rather than the bits and pieces that I had heard as a child and teenager) was an eye-opening experience in several respects. While writing this book, I thought about the tenuousness and precariousness of life. I also researched conceptions of evil in an effort to try to understand how a segment of humanity could have degraded and dehumanized fellow human beings during the Holocaust. (I failed to adequately understand such a perverse dimension of evil). Finally, I thought about my family’s and my own existence. We live in the United States, the greatest democracy in the world. Just over 60 years ago, however, my grandparents, who lived in Poland when the Holocaust started, lived through one of the most oppressive and murderous periods in human history. In the process of writing this book and chronicling my grandparents’ amazing lives, I gained a new appreciation for—and perspective on—life. I believe that the accounts of Holocaust survivors should be made widely available to the public. Such accounts increase public awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust. I wrote this book with love for and in honor of my grandparents, but hope that it also serves the purpose of increasing the material contained in the vault of knowledge pertaining to the personal accounts experienced by Holocaust survivors during and after the war. Only through education can we hope to prevent another atrocity of the magnitude of the Holocaust.

This book does more than recount the details of my grandparents’ remarkable lives. It is also a book that discusses the dimensions of human evil (the Nazis) and compassion (those heroic individuals who risked their own lives to save innocent people during World War II). Infused throughout the text are my own critical analyses of aspects of anti-Semitism, the nature of evil, the Holocaust, racism, and hatred. These analyses include insights and quotations by prominent historians such as Eric J. Sterling, Laurence Rees, Joachim C. Fest, and Jan T. Gross; civil libertarians such as Alan Dershowitz; civil rights activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; international scholars such as Samantha Power; world leaders such as former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and former President of the State of Israel Chaim Herzog; and reflections by other Holocaust survivors, such as Alexander Kimel, Toivi Blatt, Victor Frankl, Else Baker, Marek Edelman, and Elie Wiesel; as well as child Holocaust survivors such as Nechama Tec. These insights offer powerful and diverse conceptions of the impact of the Holocaust. Only if we discuss these issues in an open manner can we hope to prevent another Holocaust in our or future generations.

Author’s Note about Sources

The text of this book documents the lives of my maternal grandparents, Cecilie and Leon Matzner. The events of their lives before, during, and after the Holocaust are recounted in chronological order. I have made efforts to cross-reference specific dates in order to achieve a high level of accuracy when completing this book. The details of the events were provided to me by first-hand interviews with my grandparents. As I interviewed my grandparents, I recorded much of our conversations on a tape recorder. I also took careful, detailed notes of what they said. Prior to publication, my grandparents surveyed the text for any inaccuracies. Any slight historical inaccuracies that remain are based either on my own error or a result of my grandparents’ slight discrepancies of specific details of an event. The reader should be assured that every effort has been made to achieve and ensure historical accuracy. The events chronicled in this book reflect, in their entirety, the recollections of Cecilie and Leon Matzner.

Introduction: Remembering the Holocaust

In the Broadway show The History Boys, several students engage in a heated argument pertaining to whether or not the Holocaust should be viewed as a tragedy unmatched by any other—either of type or magnitude—in history, or whether, as one boy posited, simply another historical event for the history books. The Holocaust was the largest tragedy not only of our time, but also one of the most destructive events in the history of mankind. The Holocaust has left us with a very specific connotation to the word survivor. Upon hearing that someone is a survivor, we immediately know exactly what that person has survived. (This point was highlighted in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode entitled The Survivor). Still, despite the thousands of books and articles written about the Holocaust and World War II, it remains difficult to comprehend the sheer magnitude of the Holocaust.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has noted that Auschwitz, one of the Nazis’ concentration camps where millions of Jews were gassed and murdered, was the size of more than 5,000 football fields (Elie Wiesel on the Oprah Winfrey Show). The Nazis were the most prolific killing machines in human history. Their ultimate goal was to destroy, through genocidal actions, the entire Jewish people. Civil libertarian and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz pointedly explains that the Holocaust was unique not because of an aim to kill a group of people residing in a particular area, but because of the pervasiveness of the Nazis’ perverse plans. He documents that:

The uniqueness of the Holocaust was not the Nazis’