Names Not Numbers

Gerda Leshin

Berlin, Germany

In Hiding

1931

Gerda Leshin

Berlin, Germany

1931

Born in Berlin in 1931 to Galitzianer parents, Mrs.Leshin was the youngest of three children. She grew up during the Nazi Nuremberg laws, recalling the restrictions such as not being allowed to sit on benches.

She has vivid memories of Kristallnacht.

In April 1939, her family left Germany, aided by a passport her father purchased on the black market to import meat from Holland. Just before Pesach, they moved to England, where she remembers the outbreak of the war.

Her father, holding a German passport, was considered an enemy and had to flee. The family eventually crossed the Atlantic, landing in Boston before making their way to New York’s Washington Heights, where her father resumed his work as a butcher.

Mrs. Leshin attended public school and Talmud Torah. Her story is one of escape, not survival. Her first husband passed away in 1955, and she had one child from her first marriage and none from her second. Today, Mrs. Leshin lives in Passaic with her son.

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The End

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Gerda Leshin interview at Clifton Cheder- 2023-2024

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