Miriam Gittel Feldman Mrs. Feldman was born 1925, in a small predominately Jewish village in Hungary. She was sent to Auschwitz after the Nazi invasion in 1944. She said while she was in Auschwitz she lost her faith for a short moment. She already lost her father when she was very young, and as soon as she got to the camp her mother and sister were sent to the crematorium. She felt completely alone, sick, and over worked. She said one day she got angry with G-D, but then got a hold of herself and said, “Ribono Shel Olam, please forgive me! I lost everyone else, I can’t lose you too!” She remains a religious Jewish women until this day. Mrs. Feldman was liberated April 15, 1945. She went back to her village in Hungary, and discovered that she was completely alone. Some non-Jewish neighbors took pity on her and offered her to live with them, but she refused, not wanting to live with gentiles. There were another two Jews who took up a room in the town and ask her to join them. But as they were two young men, she politely refused them as well. She then traveled to a much bigger city that had a small orthodox community which formed right after the war. It was there that she found her future husband and was married in 1947. After the Communist take over she was relieved. She thought they were good since they were against Hitler. However, life under communism became very hard for a religious family. She had been warned by her friends that her next door neighbor was an informant for the secret police. One Shabbos as Mrs. Feldman was on her way to Shul, the neighbor called to her from across the street and asked her where she was going. The neighbor told her that she is not allowed to go to shul. It was then that they decided they needed to leave and country, but they weren’t able to get out until 1956, when they escaped to Austria. In Austria, they were forced to lived in a refugee camp until they got visas to immigrate to the USA. While in Hungary they had two sons. Today, one son lives in Washington D.C., and works with the Holocaust museum as a researcher, and the other son lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. When the Feldmans came to America, they settled in Albany Park, Chicago. After spending a few weeks every winter in Florida, they decided to move here after her husband retired. With the passing of her husband, Mrs. Feldman moved to a Kosher ALF in Pembroke Pines. I recently began teaching at this facility and had the honor and privilege of meeting Mrs. Feldman and having her in my class. I quoted the Satmar Rebbe to her who said, “When you find a survivor, you can ask them for a Bracha. I then asked Mrs. Feldman, and she very humbly gave me her Brocha.