My role model, my grandma
By Melissa Pfeffer
EDI 600 Psychological Foundation of Education
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March 25, 2009
The person I view as my role model is my paternal grandmother who is no longer with us anymore. My grandmother was a woman who lived a long life without ever feeling sorry for the hardships she was forced to live through. She grew up in Auschwitz, Poland, a place that would later become a land mark of international tragedy. It was in that same spot that hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed during the holocaust.
My grandmother lived through perhaps the worst Nazi death camp in World War II. She was raised as part of a poor family that did not even have electricity in their home. Her mother was strict and kept a close guard on the family happenings around the house. During her teenage years she was separated from her brother and father and taken to a Nazi death camp with her sister and mother. There she saw herself forced to separate among two distinct lines, one line which would let her live and the other which would send her to an instant death. My grandmother wound up on the line which let people live while she saw her mother and sister put on the death line. My grandmother had told me that while a guard turned his back her mother pushed her sister onto the safe line to spare her life. She had to slap her sister to keep her from screaming and having them all killed. This was the last time she ever saw her mother alive.
During this time my grandmother used her multilingual strengths to translate for the guards. Amazingly, the guards took a liking to her. This resulted in extra food which she used to keep her and her sister alive. Some may look at her as a traitor because she performed a service to help the Nazi’s, but I see it as she did what she needed to do in order to keep herself and her sister alive. In the death camps nobody had a guarantee that they would live even to the next hour, so how can my grandmother be blamed? It is entirely possible that my grandmother would sometimes translate incorrectly and say things to the guards just to stay on their good side so she wouldn’t incur their anger at an unfavorable remark.
My grandmother was finally freed when the Americans marched into her camp and liberated them. She managed to help support her and sister in a Post-WWII Germany with no real education and skills. It was only after the nightmare had finally ended that my grandmother had a stroke of fate. She would always recount her favorite story of how she met my grandmother. The story goes that she was walking by a tree one day and my grandfather was hanging from the branches like a monkey to make her laugh. She told me she felt sorry for the bum and went on a date with him because no one else probably would. She would always tell me that I should never feel sorry for anyone because look what happened to her. At a time when women always listened to their husband my grandmother stood up to my grandfather. She refused to follow him to present day Palestine only to live behind a barbed wire. If this was truly my grandfathers dream she said that she would leave him, but instead they would up coming to the United States.
When she arrived to New York City she did everything it took to survive and take care of her family. She learned the American culture, English language, and all the subtle differences that make up this country from Eastern Europe. My grandmother’s strong will and personality instilled in me many morals and values that I will never forget. She told me to always strive to be the best person that I can be and never feel sorry for myself, no matter what. I know that if she could see me now she would see be very proud, not only that I not graduated college, but that I took it one step farther into graduate school. My grandmother was a woman who in all her life never felt sorry for what she lost in her life and the terrible memories that she was forced to cling onto. She would instead be thankful for the good things that happened to her including the survival of her sister and later finding her brother and father through the Red Cross. The worst I ever heard her say regarding that early period in her life was: “those damn Nazi’s should burn in hell.” She said this in response to an incident in which she jumped out of a third floor window to avoid the Nazi’s and hurt her back. Up until the day she died of Leukemia ten years ago she was always thinking about and caring for her family. She never lost that vibrant spirit, as she even hid cookies and food by her bed in the hospital for her own entertainment when she had to be alone.
She impacted my life as a consistent force that helped me become the strong person I am today. I grew not only to love her, but respect her for persevering on despite the awful tragedies she lived through. I feel many people would have just given up hope. I want nothing more than to take on the qualities that made her such an inspirational and great woman. When she died no one could say anything bad about her, there was just the wonderful influence and effect she had on everybody’s lives. For this reason every year I walk in the “Light the night walk” to help support the blood cancers of Leukemia and Lymphoma and I carry a gold balloon with her name on it in memory of her. I miss my grandmother everyday of my life and never a night goes by when I do not think about her and what she meant to me.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March 25, 2009
The person I view as my role model is my paternal grandmother who is no longer with us anymore. My grandmother was a woman who lived a long life without ever feeling sorry for the hardships she was forced to live through. She grew up in Auschwitz, Poland, a place that would later become a land mark of international tragedy. It was in that same spot that hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed during the holocaust.
My grandmother lived through perhaps the worst Nazi death camp in World War II. She was raised as part of a poor family that did not even have electricity in their home. Her mother was strict and kept a close guard on the family happenings around the house. During her teenage years she was separated from her brother and father and taken to a Nazi death camp with her sister and mother. There she saw herself forced to separate among two distinct lines, one line which would let her live and the other which would send her to an instant death. My grandmother wound up on the line which let people live while she saw her mother and sister put on the death line. My grandmother had told me that while a guard turned his back her mother pushed her sister onto the safe line to spare her life. She had to slap her sister to keep her from screaming and having them all killed. This was the last time she ever saw her mother alive.
During this time my grandmother used her multilingual strengths to translate for the guards. Amazingly, the guards took a liking to her. This resulted in extra food which she used to keep her and her sister alive. Some may look at her as a traitor because she performed a service to help the Nazi’s, but I see it as she did what she needed to do in order to keep herself and her sister alive. In the death camps nobody had a guarantee that they would live even to the next hour, so how can my grandmother be blamed? It is entirely possible that my grandmother would sometimes translate incorrectly and say things to the guards just to stay on their good side so she wouldn’t incur their anger at an unfavorable remark.
My grandmother was finally freed when the Americans marched into her camp and liberated them. She managed to help support her and sister in a Post-WWII Germany with no real education and skills. It was only after the nightmare had finally ended that my grandmother had a stroke of fate. She would always recount her favorite story of how she met my grandmother. The story goes that she was walking by a tree one day and my grandfather was hanging from the branches like a monkey to make her laugh. She told me she felt sorry for the bum and went on a date with him because no one else probably would. She would always tell me that I should never feel sorry for anyone because look what happened to her. At a time when women always listened to their husband my grandmother stood up to my grandfather. She refused to follow him to present day Palestine only to live behind a barbed wire. If this was truly my grandfathers dream she said that she would leave him, but instead they would up coming to the United States.
When she arrived to New York City she did everything it took to survive and take care of her family. She learned the American culture, English language, and all the subtle differences that make up this country from Eastern Europe. My grandmother’s strong will and personality instilled in me many morals and values that I will never forget. She told me to always strive to be the best person that I can be and never feel sorry for myself, no matter what. I know that if she could see me now she would see be very proud, not only that I not graduated college, but that I took it one step farther into graduate school. My grandmother was a woman who in all her life never felt sorry for what she lost in her life and the terrible memories that she was forced to cling onto. She would instead be thankful for the good things that happened to her including the survival of her sister and later finding her brother and father through the Red Cross. The worst I ever heard her say regarding that early period in her life was: “those damn Nazi’s should burn in hell.” She said this in response to an incident in which she jumped out of a third floor window to avoid the Nazi’s and hurt her back. Up until the day she died of Leukemia ten years ago she was always thinking about and caring for her family. She never lost that vibrant spirit, as she even hid cookies and food by her bed in the hospital for her own entertainment when she had to be alone.
She impacted my life as a consistent force that helped me become the strong person I am today. I grew not only to love her, but respect her for persevering on despite the awful tragedies she lived through. I feel many people would have just given up hope. I want nothing more than to take on the qualities that made her such an inspirational and great woman. When she died no one could say anything bad about her, there was just the wonderful influence and effect she had on everybody’s lives. For this reason every year I walk in the “Light the night walk” to help support the blood cancers of Leukemia and Lymphoma and I carry a gold balloon with her name on it in memory of her. I miss my grandmother everyday of my life and never a night goes by when I do not think about her and what she meant to me.
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