At the look! “Women of the Year” gala, Erika Freeman was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Danielle Spera delivered a moving tribute.
on your exit permit. Then you travelled to the USA in a roundabout way … I never really wanted to go there and they didn’t want me there, either (smiles). The relatives who took me in didn’t know what to do with me. I studied English every day at home, just sat with my books open when my relatives wanted me to go out and play with the children in the street. Can you imagine? I was a well-behaved girl from Vienna – you didn’t meet boys out in the street to play! Why should I have gone out on the street in New York? My mum would not have approved. I always wanted to be good to please her (points up). I was an independent child, even when I was still in Vienna. My mother went to the emigration office every evening to get a number, at night I was often alone because she had to wait in line for a long time. A woman once asked her: “How is your child? Does she cry a lot?” And my mother said, “She behaves well, she reads and she falls asleep alone.” I was a good child, I’m grateful for that, because she had a hard enough time. When I was on a train and then on a ship to America, I didn’t know that I would never see her again. Your mother, who survived denunciation, concentration camps and years of living underground in Vienna, died in the bombing of the Philipphof on Albertinaplatz in the last weeks of
the war. Do you think of her often? Every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her: my mum is always with me. She was an extraordinary woman – the first Hebrew teacher in Western Europe. She could be assertive, was very independent and studied Hebrew, which was unimaginable at that time. My grandmother was also extraordinary. You know, grandmothers are the most important people for a child! Why is that? Because they are love. Grandmothers are pure love. Children feel that very strongly. The mother has to keep everything going, she organizes and does things and makes things happen. The grandmother only has to love. You have experienced so much hardship and yet you have always remained positive. Does your faith help you? Look, even if no one else loves you, the good Lord does. I’m a religious person – my father wasn’t, but my mother was, she ran a kosher household. She once came home with a few pieces of salami and said to me, “Taste it, it’s kosher!” And I thought to myself, if this religious person wants to tell me a lie and say that salami is kosher, then I’ll eat it just to please her. The Lord God forgives and He is there, just like tomorrow is always tomorrow. And if you can’t always see the Lord, then have a little patience. He is patient with us. That’s a “mutual agreement” and quite practical! (Laughs.)
WELCOME VIENNA
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