“Today, my grandmother, Frieda Steinberg, Holocaust survivor from Kumyat, Czechoslovakia, turns 98. She was taken from her home in April, 1944, and was liberated on a death march nine months later. As her body slows and her memory fades, she doesn’t talk so much about the war but did, as I was growing up, when I asked. Before the war, she was a dutiful daughter and sister to five others. After losing most of them, she became a wife to another Holocaust survivor, Sol, who has since long been gone. She was mostly known as an expert seamstress, a fantastic cook and mother to a singular wonderful woman, my mother. So, today, I celebrate Frieda Steinberg, a woman whose face lights up only when she sees her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a woman who survived depite many years living in the shadow of her horrific memories. Frieda’s survival is grounded in her ability to share her story and the stories of her family so those who live long after her will remember her and all the faces that lit up when she told them.” – Arielle Parkoff
