Rosette Tucker Teitel collection

Rosette Tucker Teitel was born as Rose Winger in Nancy, France on March 20, 1939
(She has always been known as Rosette, which eventually became her legal name
when she became a U.S. citizen). She is the only daughter of Aron Winger, who was
born on November 9,1905 in Pianowice, Poland. Her mother, Berthe Zeller Winger was
born in Stuttgart, Germany on April 12, 1916. The couple married in Nancy on April 11,
1938.

Berthe was one of five children of Ludwig Louis (Eliezer) Zeller and Jeanne Kaufmann
Zeller, although their first-born child Sigfried died of an ear infection at age two. Louis
Zeller was a master mechanic, which made it possible for him to provide well for his
family while in Germany. In 1927 the Zeller family moved to Nancy, France to avoid
anti-Semitic outbursts against their children and in particular against Berthe, who was
called a “Christ killer” by her schoolmates.
In April 1938 Berthe Zeller married Aron Winger. They opened a linen and underwear
store “Aux Camelias” in Montlucon and lived in the back of the store. Aron Winger
traveled around the country buying merchandise and Berthe managed the business
alone. A few months after the birth of their only daughter, Rosette, the marriage
dissolved. During the war the Zeller family continued their lives as non-Jewish
Frenchmen. Doris Zeller, Rosette’s aunt, worked as a dressmaker; Arthur, the younger
uncle, worked as a mechanic and Berthe, who was a bilingual secretary, often did work
as a chambermaid or a nanny because it hid her work for the underground better. The
older uncle, Joseph Zeller, served in the French Army and later was imprisoned in a
POW camp.

Sometime in 1942 Rosette contracted diphtheria and spent three months in a hospital.
Upon her release from the hospital Rosette was sent by her mother and her family to
Faugere in Lamastre, a farm, which belonged to the Rioux family. Rosette stayed there
for four years. The Rioux family was not aware of Rosette’s Jewish origin (nor was she)
and they brought her up as a Catholic. Rosette attended the village school. She rarely
saw her parents, but her father was able to visit once and her mother only three times
during these years. In early1946 Berthe, her younger brother, and father picked Rosette
up in Louis Zeller’s car, and brought her to Marseille, where the family resided then. For
the next six months Rosette spent some of her warmest and closest times she ever had
with her family and with her grandmother especially. When Berthe Winger heard about
the newly formed United Nations offices in New York, she applied for the position of
bilingual secretary and was hired. In October 1946 Berthe and Rosette traveled to New
York. Rosette was placed with her maternal great uncle and his family while her mother
worked in Lake Success, New York and subsequently accepted a temporary
assignment with the UN office in Cuba. At the age of 9 Rosette started to live for the first
time with her mother. At that time she was diagnosed with scoliosis and lordosis, which
meant that her spine was abnormally curved. Rosette was initially fitted with a steel
brace, and then subsequent braces, which she wore for seven years with excellent
results. She graduated from the French Lycee of NY in 1959, went on to Queens
College for two years where she graduated summa cum laude, she then went on to
Columbia University where she graduated with a Masters degree in French literature in
1963. She is a teacher, teaching English as a second language as well as French and
Spanish. Mrs. Rosette Tucker Teitel has two children and two grandchildren and
currently resides in Douglaston, NY.