Adele and Miriam, a story of seeking asylum in the United States

The thousands of Latino refugees seeking asylum in the United

States reminded me of the story of an earlier generation of

refugees who also experienced family separation and extreme
hardship after being denied entry into the United States.

They were children, 10 and 9, from Zamosc, Poland when the

Germans invaded. Adele and Miriam hoped to escape Nazi

persecution and reunite with their parents who had immigrated to

the United States earlier, But they, and their three older siblings

, were denied entry by strict immigration rules.

The Germans immediately began rounding up all the Jewish men

including Adele and Miriam’s teenage brothers. They were

stripped naked, ordered to dig their own graves, shot and

dumped in those graves.

Every few weeks there was another roundup. Trucks were

waiting, Jews were loaded and driven to the nearest forest.

Graves were ready and the killing commenced. Miriam recalled,

” It is impossible to describe our lives….”.

Adele, Miriam, Anna, their sister, and Anna’s child were

rounded-up along with hundreds of others. They were ordered

to take off their clothes. Hoping to avoid certain death, they ran,

eventually  seeking refuge in a deserted building. Adele and

Miriam climbed a ladder to safety.

It was very quiet. Suddenly, the stillness was broken by Anna’s

voice pleading for her baby. Two shots rang out. They would

never see Anna or her child again.

Adele and Miriam waited. It was silent again.  Thinking it was safe

they climbed down. But a collaborator must have heard them. He

entered the building. Aiming his rifle at the two frightened girls, he

ordered them out of the building where German soldiers were

Waiting. One of the soldiers looked at his watch, and said, “Let

them go. "Enough for today.”  

A Christian family the girls had befriended hid them. Providing

them with one set of false identification papers, they urged them

to flee to Russia.“ Tomorrow is Sunday. Lots of people will be on

the road. Start walking and don’t look back.”

In the Ukraine Adele and Miriam found safety living and
working  under assumed Christian identities even after the
Germans invaded.

Following  the German defeat at Stalingrad In the winter 1943,

Adele and Miriam were separated and shipped out of Russia as

slave laborers.Miriam was sent to Italy where she worked as a

cleaning woman and later

in a hospital helping comfort the gravely wounded. The irony of a

Jewish girl comforting Nazi soldiers was not lost on her. Before

she was deported she had given  Adele her address.

Adele was eventually sent to Germany were she worked as a slave

Laborer in factories, offices and shops. The sisters wrote to each

other weekley. But only one of Adele’s postcards with a  return

address in Stuttgart got through. By then Miriam was working in a

hospital in Germany near Kaufbeuren.

Despite the Germans defeat, Miriam and the Russian women she

was with were treated like a slave by the German doctors and

nurses. They were given little food and three were forced to sleep

in a five by ten foot room. Miriam Complained. With the assistance

of a Jewish survivor working for the Americans was moved to a

better room in a convent.

Desperate to reunite with her sister, Miriam walked and hitched

hiked the 110 miles to Stuttgart joining tens of thousands of

refugees who crowded the roads much like the thousands of

Latin American refugees seeking refuge in  the US.

Once in Stuttgard Miriam walked the streets searching for her

Sister. When she noticed a handwritten menu with Adele’s

distinctive handwriting on a tavern door,. Miriam asked for

her”cousin” by her Christian name. The barmaid yelled

upstairs and in a few minutes the two sisters were hugging

in a tearful reunion. A few days later they returned to Miram’s

room in Kaufbeuren

Needing work, Adele went to the U.S. base where she met an

American GI, Robert Hillibrand. He recalled the meeting.” She

appeared...fearful as a mouse, tentatively looking in, wondering

whether she could advance another inch without being swatted

or crushed. She was like a line drawing of a person, an

amorphous being… She stood silently. She had learned that

you don’t speak without first being spoken to….That was a

ardinal principle of survival…””

Hilliard helped Adele secure a job on the base. Eventually Adele

introduced Hilliard to Miriam, “a slim young woman with

sparking dark eyes and a small round mouth, her face framed

by shining brown hair.” They told Hilliard that they were Jewish

and asked his help in reuniting with their parents in the United

States. It wasn’t easy, but eventually Hilliard reunited the two

girls with their parents in New York.

Adele married another survivor, Bernard Green. They settled in

Brooklyn and had one son, Howie. Miriam married my mother’s

youngest brother, Arnold. They had two daughters, Sylvia and

Karen. Adele and Miriam became Americans and lived quiet,

productive, lives of dignity. They rarely spoke of the terror they

had experienced.Nor did they harbor any resentment against

the country that had rejected them. But they never forgot.

Miriam died of cancer in 2004. Adele,92, died, two weeks ago

surrounded by her son and Miriam’s children. Their legacy

lives in every refugee who seeks safety and a better life; in

those who walked thousands of miles through Latin America

seeking safety and a better life in the United States; in the

children at the border who are have been cruelly separated

from their parents.Never forget. No Retreat. No Surrender.   

Miriam's Story

I was born in the city of Zamosc. I was a school girl and the 

youngest of seven children. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland I was eleven years old. My father was a grain merchant. At home both Yiddish and Polish were spoken. My family was orthodox and the Sabbath and all the holidays were observed. I remember with fondness my mother baking every Friday morning and the wonderful smell of the special breads and cakes.

The marketplace in Zamosc

There was a great deal of anti-semitism.  Jewish students were 

not always accepted to schools of higher education. Bands of 

anti-Semites would attack small businesses that were owned by

Jews. Also at universities here was a well- organized 

organization that would often beat up Jewish youth.

I heard about the German invasion over the radio. Two days into

the war our city was bombed. Many of our neighbors were killed. 

In addition to dropping  bombs on heavily populated residential 

areas, the planes were also strafing the civilians as we were 

running from the burning houses.

My family was greatly affected and our lives changed forever. 

Just before the war, in January 1939, my parents were able to

leave Poland to join my two older brothers who were in the

United States. Because of strict immigration quotas the rest

of us had to wait until December to migrate to the U.S. The war

started in September, 1939 and all communication was broken. 

My sister Adele and I were minors and lived with my sister Anna

and her husband. Their little girl Esther was born in 1940. Our

family was able to move east to the Ukraine to escape the

German occupation. We lived in the Soviet Union for two years

before the Germans invaded.

As soon as the German army occupied our area they rounded up

all the Jewish men and had them dig graves. With the help of 

civilian collaborators the Jews were ordered to strip naked and be
shot. My two brothers, eighteen and nineteen years old, were in
the first roundup and killed. Whoever survived were ordered to
move into one area designated by the Germans. This became
the Jewish ghetto.

. 

The Jewish Ghetto, Zomasc

Able and healthy Jews worked doing tailoring, 

shoemaking and road work. Every few weeks there would be a 

surprised roundup. Trucks were waiting, Jews were loaded and 

taken to the nearest forest. Graves were ready and the killing 

would go on. It is impossible to describe our lives. Although the 

roundups were usually by day, there were often rumors there 

would be a roundup that night. Food was very scarce. Everyone

was hungry. We had few possessions that we were able to barter 

with a nearby farmer and his wife and they befriended us. So we 

were able to get some flour or bread or milk.

In the fall of 1942 an order came to vacate the ghetto. My sister 

Anna and her child were rounded up and so were I and Adele 

along with hundreds of others. We were ordered to take off our 

clothes. My family started running looking for a place to hide.

Miriam and Adele in Germany

Adele who is one year older than me, and I ran together. Adele 

saw an open door to a house with no police around. We 

stepped inside. The house was deserted and had a strange odor. 

We realized that it was a tannery. There was a ladder leading to 

a loft and we climbed up and dragged the ladder up behind us. 

After some time it became very quiet. Suddenly we heard our 

sister Anna’s voice. The police had found her. She was 

pleading for them not to kill her baby. Then we heard two shots. 

We waited a little longer. Then I started coughing and needed 

some water. Because of the quiet we were sure the killing was 

over so I jumped down and Adele also jumped down. A 

collaborator must have heard us and came into the house with 

his rifle up. He ordered us out of the house. As we went out a 

German soldier appeared, looked at his watch, and said, “Let 

them go. Enough for today.” So suddenly, at ages 14 and 15, 

Adele and I became adults. A few highly skilled Jews were still 

alive. We stayed with them overnight.

The following day Adele and I made our way to the nearby farmer 

who had befriended us. They gave us something to eat. They 

said they had one baptismal certificate they could give us to use 

as a birth identity to pass as Christians. They also gave us a 

small medallion of a saint. The farmer’s wife gave us each a 

half loaf of bread and we got a bottle of water. She said,

” Tomorrow is Sunday. Lots of people will be on the road. Start 

walking and don’t look back.” And so we did.

We headed east, hoping to find a safe place where the 

Germans hadn’t reached yet. We hitch-hiked but had to 

split up in order to get rides. In order to get food I needed 

a job and food ration card. I registered in the government 

employment center and showed my baptismal certificate 

as an ID. The official was suspicious and said he would 

inquire from my parish priest. Just as he was writing 

down the information from my document, a German 

officer appeared and said,” This girl will do.” I was told to 

report the next morning to be taken with other Russian 

women to work for the German army. This is how I 

became a slave laborer for the Germans.

Miriam's German/Nazi ID card. Her name was Maria Skarschinska, a Polish
office worker. Not a Jew.

During the following years I worked as kitchen help in army 

hospitals traveling in Italy and eventually Germany. I was 

liberated by the American army in April 1945. I was able to 

find my sister who had also been a slave laborer in Germany. 

I was able to get a job working in an army px. For the first 

time in years I found kindness and help from American GIs. 

When the American soldiers found out that we had parents 

living in New York City some of them wrote to relatives in New 

York. Knowing we came from Zamosc one of them contacted 

a Zamosc “landsmannschaft”, a fraternal order of immigrants 

from the same place. They recognized the names and our 

parents contacted us through the army post office. In 1946 

we came to the United States and were reunited with our 

parents.

I believe the lessons your generation (and mine) must be taught 

is that we must respect one another regardless of ethnic or 

religious differences. We must strive for a peaceful world for 

everyone without hatred.