I Learned About Love from My Grandmother, and Now I Share Her Legacy
By Hagit Zadok Fefferman, 3G Miami Board Member
Me with my grandmother Rose Silberberg in the 90s.
“Will you remember me?” Grandma Rose used to ask.
Every time I retell her story to students, my heart aches. I ache for her suffering, for the family and friends she lost, and for an entire world that was destroyed.
We shared the same color eyes. “That’s what saved me,” she would say. Dr. Mengele, the Angel of Death, looked at her and said, “I like your eyes.” He motioned her to one side: to live. Her friend, who had brown eyes, was sent the other way.
But what defined my grandmother most wasn’t how she survived. It was who she remained. Her neshama, her soul, stayed full of chesed, an enduring, generous loving-kindness. Even when she had nothing in the concentration camp, she risked her life to smuggle food to the sick. That’s who she was. And that’s who I carry with me, in my face, in my heart, and into every classroom where I share her story.
I remember my 7-year-old hands in my grandparents’ hands. We were walking in front of my house the first time they told me what happened to them during the Holocaust. That first time, Rose was in too much pain to talk for long. But over the years, I kept asking. Eventually, she agreed to sit down for a tape-recorded interview. After that, she continued to share more and more with me, unprompted, though it was always too painful for her to speak publicly. She didn’t want to burden the rest of the family with the weight of her story.
Rose was born in 1916 in Wieluń, Poland to a poor Orthodox-Jewish family.
Education wasn’t available to her, so after middle school she worked in her family’s inn.
When they became destitute, they moved to Łódź when she was 18. Four years later, World War II began. When she was betrayed by a non-Jewish friend, 22-year-old Rose and her family were forced into the Łódź Ghetto.
After four years of slave labor and watching her family members die of starvation, she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. There, she was subjected to brutal medical experiments and beaten severely. Later, she was transferred to several other concentration camps. After years of dehumanization, Rose felt the only way to reclaim her humanity was by helping others. So she smuggled food to the sick, even though it could have cost her life.
As the war came to an end, Rose was put on a transport bound for death. The train was bombed by the Allies, allowing survivors to escape. She and two girlfriends fled into the woods. Miraculously, when they were discovered in hiding, they convinced the Nazis they were Polish Christians. Soon after, the Soviets liberated them and took them to an international camp until the war ended.
Rose searched for any surviving family, only to learn she was the sole survivor. The experiments done on her had been designed to make her sterile. Her town had a sign that read, “Free of Jews.” Non-Jews who had taken over her hometown told her she would be killed if she stayed.
She tried to get papers to immigrate to British Mandate Palestine, but the Jewish quotas were full. She couldn’t get papers to America either. Eventually, she met and married my grandfather, Boris. She was shocked when she became pregnant. Twice. The others in her group who had been experimented on were never able to have children. So my mother’s existence, and mine, is nothing short of a miracle.
Right before I was going to be married, Rose pulled me aside. She told me she had fainted at her own wedding. “Did you faint because your body was still in starvation mode? Or were you unsure of your groom?” I asked. She answered, “No. I looked around and saw that no one from my family had survived. No friends. No one who knew me growing up. Then I looked up... and I fainted.” In that moment, I understood the depth of her loss. Not a single person from her childhood had survived to be there. And I realized how lucky I was, at my wedding, to be surrounded by family and friends.
Rose passed away 10 days after I gave birth to my first daughter. Even though she was sick, she held on just long enough to hold her first great-grandchild. All of her suffering, and the murder of six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, came from hatred and beliefs rooted in antisemitism. But she taught me love. She taught me that my beliefs, ideas, and words matter. She taught me to stand up for myself and for others.
When I speak to students, I feel like I’m spreading love the best way I know how. Not a quiet, comfortable kind of love, but one rooted in truth and compassion. By sharing her story, I am fulfilling my promise to remember Rose. I am honoring her for all the times she took care of me when my parents were working, and for every beautiful memory we shared.
I encourage others to share their family stories too. These stories are gifts. Each one helps us understand the bigger picture. And that understanding can change lives.
I believe in lifelong Holocaust education. It is education in morality, in values, and in humanity. I’m grateful that 3G Miami gave me a way to fulfill my promise to remember Rose. Now, whenever I meet another grandchild of a survivor, I urge them to join a 3G chapter of Living Links and share their story too.
Rose used to sign every card to me, “A million kisses, love, Grandma Rose.” So I give students chocolate kisses and say they’re from Rose in heaven, to thank them for bearing witness to her story.
We’ll teach you how to share your grandparent’s story.