Sylvia Rozines papers

Cywia (Sylvia) Perelmuter was born on January 20, 1935, to Isak, born in 1903, and Chaja Wolfman in Łódź, Poland. She joined older sister, Dora (Doris), who was born in 1927. Her father worked in a wholesale flour and sugar cooperative. On September 1, 1940, Germany invaded Poland. Łódź was occupied and renamed Litzmannstadt. In February, the Jews were forced into a small section of the city that was closed in by barbed wire. All residents were required to work. Her father delivered flour by horse and buggy to the bakeries and her mother and Dora worked at the women’s underwear factory. Sylvia at first was considered too young to work and went to school, but she later joined her mother and sister in the bra and corset factory.

In the spring of 1944, the Germans decided to destroy the ghetto and deport the residents to killing centers. They retained a small group of about 800 workers to gather and sort the leftover belongings for shipment to Germany. The Rozines were supposed to be deported, but they disobeyed orders and stayed. Cywia hid with eight to twelve other children, while their parents worked cleaning out the ghetto. One day, German soldiers discovered the children and took them to their headquarters. After a long day and a lot of talking which Cywia did not understand, the chldren were taken to the factories to be with their parents. By August, the ghetto was nearly empty. The workers heard that more German soldiers were arriving, and, believing that they were to be killed, they all went into hiding in the ghetto. The ghetto was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 19, 1945.

After the Germans left, the Poles entered the ghetto to take the possessions and belongings that had been left behind. The Perelmuter’s ghetto apartment was left with only a few photographs. Cywia heard one of the Poles exclaim: “Look how many are still left over.” The family moved to another part of the city. Isak re-established his flour and sugar business, with credit from people who remembered him from before the war. The business prospered and Cywia and Dora returned to school. However, virulent antisemitism was still everywhere and they did not feel safe. Poles would sometimes arrive at apartments in the middle of the night and take all the occupants’ money and there were murders of returning Jews by the Poles. One evening in 1945, taking only a few belongings to avoid detection by their neighbors, the family took a night train to Szczecin, Poland. From there, they went by truck to Germany, crossing the border illegally at night. They arrived in Berlin, Germany, and were registered and vaccinated at the Schlachtensee displaced person’s camp. From there, they went to Foehrenwald, then to Bad Reichenhall displaced person’s camps.

In November 1946, Sylvia’s mother discovered that her brother was living in Paris where he had moved before the war. The family again made an illegal border crossing at night, and went to Paris. Isak worked pressing clothes in a garment factory and her mother sewed clothes at home. Sylvia and Dora made money as delivery persons. Sylvia resumed her schooling. She had to start all over again in a new language, but the teachers and the other students were helpful and welcoming. Her father hired a tutor because the sister’s education was so important to him. Sylvia’s sister married a fellow Polish survivor, Jacques Galek, in 1948, and the couple emigrated to the United States in 1949 with the assistance of Jacques’s relatives in Albany. In 1951, Sylvia’s mother died of cancer at the age of 45.

In 1957, Sylvia and her father were able to immigrate to the United States to join Doris and Jacques in Albany, New York. Once Isak obtained a garment factory job, he and Sylvia moved into their own apartment. Sylvia married David Rozines in 1959, also from Poland, who had survived the war in Siberia. They had a son in 1961. Isak died, age 77, in December 1980.