Malka married Mortka Mendel BIALYSTOCK in 1890. Mortka (son of Moshe Leib BIALYSTOCK and Freida NEKHAMA) was born on 2 May 1872 in Wyszków, Poland; died in 1943. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Dora Feigel Bialystock, married Chaim Eliezer (Herman) Bedak (b. 1887). The couple lived in The Hague. The acquisition of fake Turkish passports in the name of Petenbaum and the birthplace of Jerusalem did not protect them from deportation. Both were murdered in Auschwitz.

Family/Spouse: Chaim Eliezer BEDAK. Chaim was born on 2 Feb 1887 in Augustów, Poland; died on 27 Mar 1944 in Auschwitz, Poland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In Berlin the Bialystock family had a fashion shop next to C&A, Heinrich Chaim Bialystock had already left Berlin for Belgium due to increasing crimes committed against Jews. His wife Franya had stayed behind to finish up the shop and would follow her husband. During the Kristall Nacht their shop got damaged but also some of the C&A shop. The Brenninkmeyers insisted and made Franya Bialystock pay for the damages to the C&A shop too.The Bialystocks were eventually arrested in Belgium and both died in Auschwitz on 21 September 1942. (Source: C&A and the Nazi Regime)

Family/Spouse: Franja BLOCH. Franja was born on 21 Feb 1901 in Częstochowa, Poland; died on 21 Sep 1942 in Auschwitz, Poland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Also Known As: Chaja Esther

Notes:

Chaja Esther Bialystock married Arie Lew (Leo) Pajgin, born in Grodno in 1888, who died in The Hague in 1941. They had three children who survived with the mother in Surinam (Dutch Guiana). After the war Chaja Esther Pajgin moved to the USA.

Family/Spouse: Arie Leon PAJGIN. Arie was born on 12 Apr 1888 in Grodno, Russia; died on 7 Dec 1941 in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Immigration: 1923, The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands
• Residence: 13 Oct 1942, Geneva, Switzerland
• Naturalization: 25 May 1950, The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Jankiel married Johanna MANDELLAUB on 30 May 1934 in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands. Johanna (daughter of Lazarus MANDELLAUB and Fanny LASER) was born on 21 Apr 1910 in Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg, Germany; died on 19 Jun 1995 in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Isaak Bialystock arrived by Spain (for the year 1943 is his stay in Madrid occupied) in the United States, he lived in New York.

Notes:

In 1929 Bertha Bialystock married the Dutch citizen Manuel Cohen, who was born in Groningen in 1899, and moved to The Hague. The son Louis was born in 1930 in Bremen. Manuel Cohen had been a post office since 1919 and was released as a Jew after the invasion of German troops. Manuel and Louis Cohen were deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. For Manuel, he is listed as the death date for Louis. Bertha Cohen has survived the war, she stayed in The Hague, she reported her father’s death to Yad Vashem.

Family/Spouse: Manuel COHEN. Manuel was born in 1899 in Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands; died on 28 Feb 1943 in Auschwitz, Poland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Naturalization: 6 Mar 1958

Notes:

Isidor Bialystock survived in Spain and returned to the Netherlands after the war.

Family/Spouse: Ms RABINOVITSCH. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Erich COPPEL. Erich was born on 30 Jun 1902 in Germany; died in Jan 1980 in North Bergen, Hudson, New Jersey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Rebecca married Maurits Mordechai Salomon SCHAAP in 1945. Maurits was born on 8 Feb 1907 in Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands; died on 11 Aug 2001 in Jerusalem, Israel. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Moshe married Rachel DAVID in 1945. Rachel was born on 3 Sep 1923; died on 14 May 2013. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1992, Arlington, Virginia

Notes:

Oral history interview with Vera Sprecher and Robert Sprecher Interview March 17, 1992 (2 sound cassettes - English)

Family/Spouse: Robert Isidor SPRECHER. Robert was born on 16 Oct 1915 in Dortmund, Germany; died on 26 May 2002 in Arlington, Virginia. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Source: 2008/03/25 at 12:00 AM - Liz Ford, Staff Writer, eford@smu.edu

A woman’s journey and lucky escape

 It was 1944 in The Hague, Netherlands. An abandoned doll sat lifeless in a deserted house on the city’s oldest street. Hand-knit clothes clung to her porcelain body; specks of dust grayed her hair. Suddenly, knocks echoed through the narrow street and watery eyes peered through curtains in neighboring homes. Heavy fists hammered on the wooden door. There was no answer. The Nazi soldiers came too late. The Pajgin family was gone.
 Today, Liny Pajgin Yollick sits in her Dallas home with her husband Bernard. Her right hand fiddles with a gold watch on her left wrist as her light blue eyes scan the walls. Her own paintings meet her gaze. She spends much of her time filling empty canvases with the striking colors nestled in her mind.
 Liny was 16 years old when the Germans marched to the Netherlands. Her family, like many, went underground during the initial takeover. She hid in a small air raid shelter with her mother, father and three sisters, terrified to see what was happening outside. “I hated to come out because I knew I was going see them,” she said. “It was better than living under the Germans.”
 Soon those, like Liny, who lived to see the atrocities of the Holocaust, will not be able to share their stories. Survivors and war veterans are now at least 80 years old. SMU Professor of Human Rights Dr. Rick Halperin believes that it is crucial that new generations understand the plight of the Jews and other victims in World War II. The nearly 6,000,000 people who were systematically slaughtered because of their religion cannot be forgotten. Knowledge and action are the two things humans have than can ensure a tragedy such as the Holocaust does not reoccur. “What happened in the Holocaust is not an aberration of human behavior. In every damn decade since World War II there is genocide. It’s up to us to make sure they stop,” Halperin said.
 When Liny emerged from the shelter after five days, the royal family had fled to England and new edicts had been enforced. She walked to city hall with her family and was given a star to wear. A large “J” was printed on her ID card and she was removed from school. By 7 p.m. she was indoors, dreading any knock on the door.
 Her father, Leo, hid the family’s gold coins under floorboards in the attic and returned to work every day. His wife Emma was young, smart and beautiful. She cared for her children and then went to work in the family shoe store. When Leo died of a heart attack on Dec. 7, 1941, Emma was left to provide for the family.
 Emma Pajgin would not stand idly by and watch her three daughters starve. Risking instant death, she sold shoes to Nazi soldiers on the black market, using her charm and beauty to disguise her Jewish identity. She convinced grocers to save food for her family after specified “Jewish shopping hours” had elapsed. Her daughters never went hungry. “She thought of everything,” Liny said.

 After two years of German occupation, Emma made a decision. She rounded up her daughters and gave them instructions. Liny, instead of celebrating her 18th birthday, slid on two dresses and cut a slit inside her shoe. She slipped a few gold coins in while sandwiches were prepared in the kitchen. The four women left The Hague in the morning of July 14, 1941, leaving all of their belongings behind, including her prized possession: a doll wearing clothes she knit herself.
 It was a four-week journey to Southern France. Though Jews were banned from train travel, the Pajgin women boarded. “People never think I’m Jewish,” she said. “I don’t know what you have to look like to be Jewish, but people never thought I was. That helped us.”
 The journey was hard. Afraid of being captured, the four women took separate paths and decided to meet at a small farmhouse near the Belgian border. Completely alone, Liny set off on her journey. Before long she lost her way and was forced to ask a nearby farmer for help. “He told me that everyone knew what I was doing, so I should just turn around and go home,” she explained.
 Though she was terrified, Liny kept walking. She turned from the farmer without a word and wandered the countryside until she found the farmhouse where her mother and sisters awaited her arrival. They spent days in the house under the protection of a friend. Finally, word came that the border was clear, and the women set off again. Once across the border, Liny boarded another train. “I was so nervous, I trembled the whole time,” she said.
 The four women took the stop at Antwerp, deciding to hide at an uncle’s house. The visit was short; Emma knew they needed to keep moving. For two days the women pleaded with Liny’s uncle to join them, but he could not be swayed. He remained in Antwerp with his wife and 12-year-old daughter. All three were taken from their home and killed before the war was over.
 The Pajgin women continued their journey. Bartering the gold coins for their lives, all four arrived safely in Southern France, where they remained for two months. Knowing they could not stay for long, the women took a train to Portugal. It was here the Dutch Console sent a ship to transport 75 refugees to Dutch Guiana, at that time a Dutch province and safe haven for Jews on the north coast of South America.

 The Pajgins found safety in Dutch Guiana. Liny was given an exam to complete high school, and soon after was offered a job at the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C. Liny Pajgin arrived in America before World War II was over.
 She was planning on returning to Europe after a few years in the United States, but Bernie Yollick changed her mind. A friend of Liny threw a party to catch the eye of the eligible Bernie, a surgeon in training. Unfortunately for the hostess, Bernie’s eye was caught by Liny. They wed three months later. The couple has been married for over 60 years. They raised two children: a daughter who graduated from Agnes Scott and a son who received his diploma from Princeton University. Mr. and Mrs. Yollick live in a Dallas home of their own design and, according to Bernie, they could not be a happier pair. “She has been through a lot and she’s such an incredible woman. We have so much fun together, and we’re going to for a long time,” he said.

 More than 100,000 Jews were killed in the Netherlands during World War II. Today, more than 70 years after the war, Holocaust survivors and their families are still fighting to regain property that was stolen. Legal battles rage and many find themselves still without the money they had before the Nazi takeover. According to Halperin, this is but one problem the war society must face.
 Brittany Gonzalez, a senior anthropology major and student of Halperin’s, wholeheartedly agrees with the professor’s teachings. She believes that humans have a higher responsibility to aid one another. Education, she says, is the first step. “I just watched ‘Schindler’s List’ for about the 10th time,” Gonzalez said. “They only way people will forget about the Holocaust is if they want to.”
 After World War II many countries vowed that another Holocaust would never take place. Halperin believes that all those who made that promise have failed miserably.
 In the Sudan hundreds of thousands are now being slaughtered. Halperin believes that if World War II should have taught people anything, it is that the largest failure of human beings is to stand idly by while others are murdered because of race or religion. “Children need to know that in order to live in a better world, you have to get involved. It can’t happen on its own – you have a responsibility to do something,” he said.
 Today a porcelain doll named Lieselotje rests on top of an old piano in a Dallas home. It is the only thing that remains of Liny Pajgin’s life in the Netherlands. Liny Yollick’s artwork is on display until March 31 at the Cerulean Gallery at 6609 Hillcrest Avenue, in front of Snider Plaza. For more information please call (214) 739-2583.

Family/Spouse: Bernard Lawrence YOLLICK. Bernard was born on 24 Mar 1922; died on 17 Jun 2012 in Plano, Collin, Texas; was buried in Emanu-El Cemetery, Dallas, Dallas, Texas. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Nellie married Howard Sanford HALPERN on 16 Oct 1949 in District of Columbia. Howard was born on 7 Jul 1925 in Newark, Essex, New Jersey; died on 16 Mar 2019; was buried in Beth El Cemetery, West Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 13 Oct 1942, Geneva, Switzerland

Notes:

Doctor Gidon Bialystok is among the top nose surgeons in the world. He has preformed over 3000 surgery’s, and 35 years of experience as a professional nose throat and ears doctor.Bialystok is available for professional consulting appointments concerning nose surgery.

Family/Spouse: Roza VISKOPER. Roza (daughter of Hartog VISKOPER and Johanna Martina RAVENSTIJN) was born on 8 Nov 1935 in The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands; died on 11 Feb 2014 in Le Chesnay, Yvelines, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Gideon married Lenny KUHR in 1974. Lenny was born on 22 Feb 1950 in Eindhoven, North Brabant, Netherlands. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 13 Oct 1942, Geneva, Switzerland

Family/Spouse: Trinette. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Sara BARI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Chaim married Etti HOCHBERG in 1983 in New York. Etti was born about 1954. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Tova COHEN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Moshe Yishai ELBAZ. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Fern Tzipporah AMPER. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Tochter eines Überlebenden spricht für ihren Vater
von Kathrin Aldenhoff – 09.11.2015

„Unsere Eltern waren Überlebende des Holocausts“, sagt Miriam Dvir, auf einer Gedenkfeier an die Reichspogromnacht. Sie ist von Israel nach Bremen gereist, um am Jahrestag für ihren Vater zu sprechen.
 Die beiden Schwestern sind hier, um die Mission ihres Vaters zu erfüllen. Sein ganzes Leben lang wollte Martin Bialystock seine Geschichte erzählen, damit niemand den Holocaust vergisst.
 Inzwischen lebt er in Tel Aviv, ist 92 Jahre alt und sitzt im Rollstuhl. Deshalb sind nun seine Töchter Miriam Dvir und Aya Stauber von Israel nach Bremen gereist, um am Jahrestag der Reichspogromnacht seine Geschichte zu erzählen.
 „Unsere Eltern waren Überlebende des Holocausts. Sie konnten nicht einen Tag ihres Lebens vergessen, was sie durchgemacht hatten“, sagt Miriam Dvir. Sie steht am Rednerpult vor den Gästen der Gedenkfeier der Fraktionen der Bremischen Bürgerschaft neben dem Gedenkstein an der Dechanatstraße. Die 67-Jährige spricht auf Deutsch, langsam, immer wieder stockt ihre Stimme. „Wir Kinder waren dazu da, ihr Leben lebenswert zu machen.“
 Sie und ihre Schwester Aya sind Holocaust-Überlebende der zweiten Generation. Ihr Leben und das ihrer Schwester sei von Schatten überlagert, die im Haus der Familie stets gegenwärtig waren. „Uns fehlte das wunderbare Glücksgefühl, von den Großeltern geliebt zu werden. Wir hatten keine.“ Ihre Stimme zittert, Miriam Dvir macht eine kurze Pause. Ihre Großeltern, also die Eltern ihres Vaters Martin, wurden in Auschwitz ermordet. Und auch Martins jüngere Schwester starb in Auschwitz. Miriam Dvir hat denselben Vornamen wie sie. Ihre Eltern gaben ihr den Namen ihrer Tante, die sie nie kennenlernen durfte, weil Miriam Bialystock als junges Mädchen in Auschwitz ermordet wurde.
 Martin Bialystock war 15 Jahre alt, als Nazis am 9. November 1938 die Scheiben des Bekleidungsgeschäfts seiner Eltern einwarfen und den Laden plünderten. Seine Schwester und er erlebten die Reichspogromnacht voller Angst in der Wohnung der Familie über dem Geschäft. Wenige Tage später musste er mit anderen jüdischen Jugendlichen Gruben auf dem jüdischen Friedhof ausheben. Für die Bremer Juden, die in der Nacht ermordet wurden.
 Kurze Zeit später wurde die Familie Bialystock gezwungen, ihr Geschäft an einen Konkurrenten zu verkaufen, die Familie flüchtete aus Bremen. Martin Bialystock floh in die Niederlande und von dort aus nach Palästina, damals britisches Mandatsgebiet. Mit 17 Jahren schloss er sich der britischen Armee an. Martin Bialystock kämpfte in Nordafrika und Italien gegen Nazi-Deutschland und suchte in Europa nach seiner Familie.
 Seine Eltern und seine Schwester Miriam flohen von Bremen nach Belgien, sie wollten ein Schiff in die USA oder ein anderes sicheres Land nehmen. Doch die Familie musste in Antwerpen warten, weil die Zahl der amerikanischen Visa beschränkt war. Sie musste zu lange warten: Die Gestapo verhaftete die Familie in Antwerpen, Martins Eltern und seine Schwester wurden nach Auschwitz deportiert und dort ermordet.
 Das ist die Geschichte, die Martin Bialystock sein Leben lang erzählen will, vor allem den jungen Menschen, damit der Holocaust nicht vergessen wird. Vor sechs Jahren war er in seine alte Heimat Bremen zurückgekehrt. Er hatte bei der Gedenkstunde für die in der Reichspogromnacht ermordeten Juden eine Rede gehalten, war Ehrengast der Nacht der Jugend im Bremer Rathaus gewesen und hatte mit Bremer Schülern über den Holocaust gesprochen. Damals hatte ihn seine Tochter Miriam Dvir begleitet. Noch einmal nach Deutschland zu kommen, dazu fehlte dem 92-Jährigen dieses Mal die Kraft.
 Rabbiner Netanel Teitelbaum stimmte bei der Gedenkfeier eine Totenklage an und betete mit den Anwesenden, Schülerinnen der St.-Johannis-Schule lasen die Namen von 60 Bremer Juden vor – stellvertretend für alle, die Opfer der NS-Diktatur wurden. Die Fraktionsvorsitzenden Björn Tschöpe (SPD), Thomas Röwekamp (CDU), Maike Schäfer (Grüne) und Kristina Vogt (Linke) legten einen Kranz nieder.
 In seiner Rede erinnerte Björn Tschöpe an die fünf Bremer Juden, die in der Reichspogromnacht ermordet wurden. Ihnen ist der Gedenkstein an der Dechanatstraße gewidmet. Er erinnerte auch an die 170 Menschen mit jüdischem Glauben, die in dieser Nacht festgenommen, durch die Stadt getrieben und ins Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen deportiert wurden. Tschöpe mahnte: „Bremer waren sie wie wir. Aber kaum jemand hat damals protestiert, als sie zum Bahnhof getrieben wurden.“

Family/Spouse: Mr. DVIR. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Mr. STAUBER. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

51 Years Later, It Needed to Be Said
by Ingrid Yollick Alpern ’69

When my mother was 18, she escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe. When I was 18, I entered Smith College. I recently saw the safe transit permit granted my mother in unoccupied Vichy France because a man at the Dutch Consulate in Lyon had given my Jewish family Dutch identity papers marked “Protestant.” In her picture on that permit, my 18-year-old mother looks up with defiance, though she did not yet know Vichy France was handing Jewish refugees to Hitler. That image of my mother has encouraged me to express my defiance at something that happened to me as a Smith student over 50 years ago.
 The summer before senior year, I began a Smith internship in Washington, D.C. We interns were housed in homes of vacationing alumnae. Granted leave to attend a wedding, I arrived one week after my housemates. No one told me they’d already established chore assignments. So when I saw garbage piled in the bin under the kitchen sink, I dumped it in the can outside. When I saw dirty dishes in the sink, I washed them.
 Soon one of my housemates approached me before work, saying, “We want to talk to you at the kitchen table tonight.” I arrived that evening to find my housemates already seated. The spokeswoman who’d called the meeting sat at the head of the table, flanked by the other women. They looked toward her expectantly. She began. “It’s not because you’re Jewish that we don’t like you.” No one said a word.
 The spokeswoman began enumerating a list of grievances: I’d taken out the garbage days before the scheduled pickup (a schedule unknown to me). I asked why that mattered. “It will smell up the garbage can out in the heat,” someone replied. (I thought to myself: But it was stinking under the sink!) She continued: I should have known they’d each chosen chores; I should have left the dirty dishes for the Dishwasher of the Week; and so on. But most of what they said was muffled behind the one salient statement. It’s not because you’re Jewish that we don’t like you. I moved out the next day.
 Now, with my 50th Reunion behind me, I’m entranced by my mother’s look of steely defiance on the permit the Vichy government gave her because of her Protestant identity paper. And now I know what I’d like to say to the spokeswoman at that table in D.C. “If it’s not because I’m Jewish that you don’t like me, then why mention that I’m Jewish?” And to the women who flanked her I want to say, “You remained silent when she said that. Your silence made me assume you agreed. Your silence enabled her to say it.”

 My entire life I’ve looked for answers to the question What allowed it to happen? Not just the Holocaust, that carefully planned, industrialized genocide of the Jewish people. But also, what allowed a loud-mouthed bully to become a dictator? I’ve learned that silence and inaction facilitated the dictatorship and genocide in Nazi Germany. We cannot be silent in the face of prejudice or hatred against any group—from bullying on the playground, on the internet or in a social gathering to bullying by a would-be dictator.
 I had close friends at Smith and have formed new Smith friendships since graduation. But Smith students also provided my first personal encounter with antisemitism. President McCartney has made me feel safer in the Smith community with her statements that all of us are wanted and appreciated despite our differences.
 After a career as a tax attorney in Washington, D.C., Ingrid Yollick Alpern ’69 is now the public policy committee co-chair for the organization Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD).

This story appears in the Winter 2019-20 issue of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.

Family/Spouse: Dwight C. ALPERN. Dwight was born on 24 Mar 1949. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Tamara Ann DRAKE. Tamara was born on 13 Dec 1962. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Philippe BURTMAN. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Aad SLOOTWEG. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Mr. OHAVI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Ziv HARPAZ. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Rabi Leib ZALESCH. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]