Holocaust Survivor’s Grandson Dave Reckess Shares His Bubi’s Story with Newark High School

Sophomores

EDITED FROM NCSD NEWS BRIEF, PRINTED WITH PERMISSION

It’s one thing to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust in a classroom. It’s quite another to hear about one of the most unthinkable chapters in human history from the grandchild of a Holocaust survivor. Justin Fladd, Newark High School (NHS) Global Studies 9 &10 teacher invited Dave Reckess, grandson of Holocaust survivor Sarah Tuller to speak to NHS sophomores on March 28th.

Reckess’ presentations, including photos and videos of his grandmother telling her stories as she did publicly many times in her later years to about 160 Global 10 students at NHS did not disappoint. Fladd said, “Dave is an amazing speaker, who does a great job engaging the student audience, and the story of his grandmother makes the Holocaust “real” for a lot of the students. It made information about the Holocaust discussed in our classes really come alive.”

While all four of Reckess’ Jewish grandparents went to concentration camps, all four survived. His presentations focus primarily on his maternal grandmother, Sarah Feldzamen, his “Bubi”

Sarah (“Bubi” is Yiddish for grandmother):

Born in 1922 in Lublin, Poland, life for Sarah took a dramatic turn in her teens with harsh restrictions imposed on Jewish people in Germany and Poland. ey wore yellow armbands identifying themselves, and demeaning, antisemitic signs were posted all over town. Kids who were once her friends threw stones at her. At 16, she was no longer allowed to attend school. Jewish families faced strict curfews and had to pay Nazi soldiers and keep businesses open so Nazi soldiers could take whatever they wanted.

At night, Nazi soldiers ordered Lublin Jews to leave their apartments and board trucks headed for concentration camps. Many of Sarah’s friends disappeared. Her brother attempted to ee to Russia but was captured, imprisoned, and killed.

Tuller shared in a video: “ e Nazis treated us like dogs, actually not even dogs, more like stray dogs. ey took away our dignity. ey dehumanized us. I knew that even though I was treated terribly, I just had to go on living and that helped me survive.” e Feldzamens returned to Lublin and searched for survivors they knew. ey found her brother’s friend, Sasha Tuller, who had ed to Russia at the beginning of the war. Sasha was the only member of his family to survive. Sarah and Sasha became close, married, and then, with her parents, they moved to New York City to create a new life. ey had three children, ran a successful fabric shop in Brooklyn, and lived many good years together.

When Sarah was 19, Jewish Lublin men and boys built a concentration camp in nearby Majdanek, where all remaining Jews were then forced to live. Not long a er they arrived, a Nazi guard told Sarah’s boyfriend, Yehuda, who came to camp with his ailing mother, that some people could try to escape at midnight. e guard would open the gate, look the other way, and let people escape. But in three minutes, he would release his dogs to chase them. Sarah’s boyfriend, who could not leave his sick mother behind, persuaded Sarah to escape with her parents and 17-year-old brother or face certain death in the concentration camp.

Amazingly, they made it back to Lublin and stayed with a trusted Catholic family. A er a few days, that family, fearing their own safety, said they must leave. e Feldzamens boarded a train to Warsaw where a kind, non-Jewish family they knew let them stay in a concealed room in their tiny apartment for 3.5 years. at life was fraught with loneliness, anxiety, fear, sadness, and monotony, but the kindness of their hosts and the hope for a better future someday kept the Feldzamens going.

Over the years in hiding, Reckess said his grandmother’s family wondered if there would even be a world worth living in when the war was over, but nally, in the spring of 1945, the Russian Army reached Warsaw and freed it from the Nazis.

Sasha Tuller died in 1985. Years later, Sarah met and married Morris Golub, who encouraged her to talk about her experiences and chronicled them into a 70- page history manuscript Reckess and his family treasure and that can be viewed in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Golub died in 2016. Sarah died three years later at age 97.

DauntingmemoriesoftheHolocaustanditsimpactonherfamily and so many others she knew and loved did not permanently scar Sarah. She lived a full, productive life. Her obituary says it best: “ rough it all, Sarah lived her life with abundant energy, honesty, and determination. She was spunky, big-hearted, and le an indelible impression on everyone she met. She taught us that life is not always fair. But while we are here and living, we should make the most of it. She showed us how to enjoy life and treat each day as a marvelous gi .”

Reckess carries on Sarah’s legacy with his work with 3GNY, an educational non-pro t organization founded by grandchildren of Holocaust survivors whose mission is to preserve the legacies and lessons of the Holocaust. For more information, visit 3gny. org.

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