Holocaust survivors attend retreat to bond, celebrate Jewish heritage

KERHONKSON, N.Y. (NEWS10) — At a Hudson Valley resort in Kerhonkson in Ulster County, came a sisterhood of women traveling from Brooklyn. 

“My parents escaped from Warsaw ghetto,” said Hana Rychlik. “What they did to us, the hunger and the degradation,” said Lillian Feintuch. “My parents were struggling, very much” shared Freida Breier.

Though their stories are different, the ladies were trauma bonded by an unspeakable historic event.

“My parents, my mother from 11, nobody survived. My father, from 7, nobody survived from Warsaw ghetto. They were the only ones who escaped,” Rychlik continued. 

These Jewish senior citizens survived the Holocaust as children. Freida Breier and her family fled Romania in the 1940s. 

“I was born in 1941, so we were always hiding...We went to Belgium, Italy, and we tried to come to the United States. We couldn't get papers. So we went to South America," said Breier

Their stories are as horrific as they are incredible. Lillian Feintuch and her mom were put on a train bound for the Auschwitz camp to be exterminated. Miraculously, it broke down, and despite repairs it could go no further.

“The tracks were bombed, and that's why I'm here today” said Feintuch. 

Feintuch and others snuck off a "death march" from a non-killing camp, when she and others were spotted by a Nazi. 

“I was a little girl and I saw these beautiful bushes, flowers. And, I went over there and I was like mesmerized, looking. All of a sudden, I look up and I see this Nazi running towards us and I said Oh my God this is the end of us. And then, I said my last prayer in Hebrew whatever you know…And then instead of coming to the adults — which was a little further away from me — they came they came —he came — to me and he's standing and standing and I'm shivering. And I said I don't know why he doesn't just take out that gun and get it over with shoot me. And instead of that he starts to cry, and he said Oh my God, he said, I thought that you were my daughter because I had long blonde, very blonde hair," Feintuch vividly recalled.  

Feintuch says the soldier told them where to hide, how to disguise their Jewish heritage, and even brought them food. Her entire family survived.

“I'm just puzzled whether if I wouldn't look like his daughter would he have had kill myself, or if would he have had pity on us," said Feintuch.

Dolly Rabinovich still carries the emblem of her suffering.  “Can you see the number?” she said holding up an arm tattoo. It was a Nazi identifier marking. She lost her three brothers, and her parents were selected by the infamous "Doctor of Death", Joseph Mengele, for execution at Auschwitz. The Nazis forcefully migrated Dolly and other Jews to another concentration camp to escape Allied liberation. Anyone who dared to take a rest would be shot dead on sight, hence the name Death March. Some loved ones, however, wouldn't let that happen. 

“I told them I have no more strength to continue the walk, I have to sit down and rest. They know what was going to happen to me so they held me up and they dragged me the rest of the way,” the Czechoslovakian Holocaust survivor recalled. 

Eventually, Dolly fell asleep on the cold snowy ground. “When I woke up there were dead people all around me…but I survived,” Rabinovich remembered. 

The survivors were brought together by The Blue Card. Founded in 1934 Germany, the nonprofit organization provides financial assistance to Holocaust survivors and victims of Nazi persecution in the US. According to a program organizer, they help about 3,000 people. Donor funded, Blue Card assists with anything from medical care and psychotherapy to monthly checks for members below the poverty line. NEWS10's Zion Decoteau and photojournalist Trent Broderick attended a day of their retreat which aimed to bring the women — and survivors in general — together for fellowship and activities to take their minds off the tragedy they endured as children. 

From sharing lunch to baking traditional Challah bread, the women had a days' worth of activities to keep them occupied. 

“Many of us live alone already. Our children are grown up, they go away. We are left in the city, and without a husband, without parents, without relatives. So, when you come together, you kind of share your time with people like you. That means a lot," said one attendee. 

Toward the end of NEWS10's visit to the retreat, the women attended a class where they learned to dance — a traditional Jewish dance — a proud embrace of the heritage, their heritage, that the Nazis tried to erase.