North Shore Towers Courier n June 2016 13 to not only wipe out Jews, but also every trace of their existence, Germans and Poles sympathetic to the Nazi cause set about murdering future generations—the children—as well as destroying Jewish cemeteries. Diana was one of the few survivors. Only eight-years old, she and her family were taken to Legionowo Ghetto in Warsaw. Sensing the worst, her parents gave Diana a crash course in Catholicism—at least everything they knew of the religion—and taught her to think of them as being dead, before pushing the child through a small hole in the wall and telling her to get away. Barefoot and starving, Diana found her way to a farm and was able to convince the farmer and his wife—The Goshorovskys— she was Catholic and to take her in, despite Mrs. Goshorovsky’s initially not wanting to accept the child. Looking back, Diana feels certain that the rural couple knew of her Jewish heritage. But being discovered was only part of Diana’s concerns. The farm lay directly on the Russian front and was bombarded every night by the Red Army. For the next 5 years, Diana and The Goshorovskys spent much of their time in an underground bunker, otherwise used to store potatoes over the winter. Diana was thirteen when the war ended, and in 1946, she was put in a Jewish orphanage, where she began putting down her feelings in the form of poetry. Torn from her family by hate and cruelty; five years spent under the fragile aegis of the Goshorovskys, while literally bombed, yet another unknown enemy trying to kill her for no other reason that for being who she was; and showed further contempt by the people surrounding the orphanage; little love and compassion remained in the young teenager. She begins to relearn those emotions from an unlikely place: South Africa. Much like families today can sponsor underprivileged, starving or war-torn children from around the globe, Jewish children were also open to sponsorship from people around the world in the years following the WWII. Diana started receiving letter, flowers, toys and candy from South Africans she’d never met, showing love and caring, and the flipside to the evil in the world to which she was the unfortunate victim for so many years. Meanwhile, relatives in the U.S. had learned of Diana’s survival and were trying desperately to bring her to their shores. Letters written by Diana, unearthed in 2014 by the Jewish Historical Society in Warsaw, reveal the heartbreaking frustration and confusion of the young teen, yearning to know why her wish to go the the Land of the Free and be reunited with her only surviving family members was being ignored. But the climate in the States following World War II was antagonistic toward refugees, even children, and despite support from her relatives in America, it took the longsuffering teen three years before she was allowed admittance. By then, she’d found love again and eventually met her husband, Oscar, a survivor himself of five different concentration camps. She vowed she’d never return to Poland. The German Evil Now that the German evil began to spread. My life became dark and sad. I am all alone in the darkness crying. I must stop crying, For I see the German soldiers walking down the street. Are they coming for me? Death don’t knock at my door. Freedom I am free, free at last. Freedom, what a beautiful sound. The Russians are here. The angels from heaven. The Germans are scared, Running away, running in all directions, Confused, terribly upset, Begging for help, Pleading for forgiveness, The superior race, No more. Teenager Diana Albert Traditional lighting of six candles (l. to r.) Irene Greenwald, David Albert, Honoree Diana Albert, Jean Schwartzer, Larry and Anna Zelman, Ruth Kogut and Yom Ha’Shoah Co-Chair Eva Kessner Honoree Diana Albert sits between her son, Dr. David Albert and Daughter-in-Law Marcy
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