Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Malka Sternberg - January 31, 2008

He thought ???. He thought he was completely cuckoo. He wouldn't see him again, he wouldn't meet him again. He avoided him as much as he could but if you know Rabbi Schoenfeld, he never fails, he never gives up. So, he organized that another cousin whose children I knew in my school would invite me to tea and he would be there. Never, never introduce me by my name and that's how it happened. So we met in, in the cousins house. They told me there was visitor there from Israel and showed me beforehand on, on Yom Kippur that sister-in-law the brother married and the sister-in-law was staying with her and her sister-in-law would love him to meet Israeli's, wouldn't I like to come over? And I never came over to children's homes if I could help it but her son was so problematic that I came over and the Israeli visitor was there. We did this on Shabbat Chol HaMoed and on Hanukkah was the wedding.

Husband: In England. In England.

Husband: In England. At ??? school where he--I, I worked.

And did Rabbi Schoen...Schoenfeld officiate?

Not only officiate he was in touch with us until he died. We were the family favorites of him. The family wasn't so, so close but with us he was very close until he died.

So, this was, this was sometime after you, you were no longer living with your father.

Oh, it was after seven years from Lavi. My father came for my wedding. He always insisted that he doesn't come for my wedding, he's coming for the bris of his grandchild. His grandchild wasn't born yet, he didn't know if it would be a boy but he's coming for the bris, he's not coming for our wedding.

Did he come for the wedding?

Yes, of course he did. The wedding was two days after the br...no, before the bris. We were--we came to the bris from, from London together already. He just wouldn't admit that he's coming to my wedding. That, that, that wouldn't, wouldn't come out of him. He couldn't say that, that he's coming to my wedding.

You were still eleven.

Pardon?

You were still eleven.

Yes, I was still eleven when he died. I wasn't his child and I wasn't--he didn't bring me up and uh, I think today I know better. Today I know his shellshock had a lot to do with it. I didn't know back then. I didn't know 'til much later what shellshock does. In Israel they didn't know what shellshock does until years and years later.