I have had a most incredible and unusual life! Being born in the United States but growing up in Nazi Germany, having to increasingly keep my American citizenship secret during the reign of the Nazis and the war, certainly shaped me and impacted my life’s journey. I have been exposed to so much hatred and war trauma in childhood that it forced me to realize I could either succumb to bitterness or try to push through the pain to find peace and meaning in my life.
I grew up in a picturesque, fertile valley that stretches for hundreds of miles along the Oder River, along the often-changing political border between Poland and Germany. The area has been known as Silesia historically. It contains a mixture of communities, including ethnic Poles and Germanic people, along with smaller populations of Jewish and Romani people. Their cultures once blended in the area where I grew up, until the Nazis came with their hateful division and purges. I learned the Silesian dialect of German as a young child, which contained many Polish words and phrases. This dialect also comes with a unique accent that is sadly dying out over the last fifty years as my generation passes on.
After attending primary and secondary school in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), I dropped out at the age of 14 at the insistence of my father, who felt going to school in wartime and during the Nazi reign was becoming too dangerous. I would only return to school once I came back to America, in 1946 when I had to leave my family back in Europe. I was the only one in my family with American citizenship! Far behind when compared to my American peers, I essentially had to start high school all over again when I returned. It was very awkward, with my language handicaps and being two years older than my same-grade peers.
I graduated from high school in New York City when I was nearly twenty, then attended Fifth Avenue (Flowers) Hospital Nursing School in the Bronx. I supported myself during my teenage years by becoming an au pair for two wonderful families, the Salters and the Starretts, where I helped raise three young children, each of who remains in close contact with me today. The Starretts were instrumental in sponsoring my family so they could return to America in the early 1950s. Oh what a happy day that was, when their ocean liner pulled in to New York Harbor!
In 1953 I met my husband Walter, also from New York City, and soon married. We moved to Iowa the day after our marriage, where Walt attended medical school at the University of Iowa. I would go on to attain a Bachelor’s degree in children’s development and early childhood education while Walt finished medical school.
After brief moves to Connecticut and Virginia, where Walt finished medical residency, we settled in Los Angeles, where we raised our three children. Years later, in the 1970s, we would escape the “rat race” of LA and move to Traverse City, Michigan, where the beautiful countryside reminded me so much of Silesia! I would fall in love with the community and soon found my calling teaching the Montessori education method to young children. In 1978 I received my Montessori teaching certificate, and in the 1980s was involved in the development of three Montessori school programs, where I would go on to teach. I would later compliment those experiences with a Master’s degree in early childhood education from Michigan State University, which I proudly received in my fifties.
I have been blessed with three wonderful children, each with vibrant families of their own, six grandchildren, four of whom were my pupils when in my Montessori classrooms. I now have two great grand children and am so lucky to watch them grow up. Fortunately, I am still be able to live in my own home in and am inclose proximity to most of my family.
Often struggling with the wounds of my childhood experiences, I have learned to find my “true self” with the help of my lifelong interest in art and painting, teaching myself to look for beauty in even the most mundane of places. Transcendental Meditation, prayer, my belief in guardian angels, and a close camaraderie with my friends, many of whom have been Jewish, have also seen me through the most difficult times.
I remember consciously as an older child to look for the good in people whenever possible, to understand their unique circumstances and not assign blame for their transgressions. Later in life this belief and orientation helped me to also embrace “Eastern” teachings and philosophy, especially the Hindu concept of Namaste. I have tried to instill and nurture kindness and compassion in children for nearly my entire life, as an au pair, as a Montessori Directress, and as a parent, grandmother, and now great grandmother. I strongly believe that the children are “the keepers of the light.”
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