My mother and I were smuggled out of Germany into Belgium by farmers. We hid in large sacks, that were purported to be filled with grain. From there it was a non-stop race always trying to stay one-step ahead of the Nazis. In Belgium, my mother and I were separated but I kept running, from Belgium to Holland to Germany to France and back to Belgium. Once I was smuggling cheese and hopped on a train car to escape the Nazis. It happened to be Maurice Chevalier’s private car. He was very nice and let me stay there until we reached France. The Nazis never searched his car. You had to have guts to live that kind life, living alone, and looking for ways to earn money to live on the black market. I thought I would never see my mother again and assumed she was dead. It was only later that I happily discovered the French Underground saved her and we reunited through the Red Cross. In 1948, I arrived in New York, as a refugee from Germany on a United States Liberty Ship with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). I clearly remember the ship stopping in the middle of the ocean. Many of us had no idea why it stopped and our first reaction was that we were all going to die. Luckily, it only stopped to refuel. I ended up settling in Chicago. In 1952, I married my husband, Earl and we later moved to Miami. Muhammed Ali once said, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” It is how I have tried to live my life. As a dedicated volunteer, I put in over 1500 volunteer hours at Douglas Gardens (now Miami Jewish Health Systems) in their
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