Tribune Articles
I KNOW WHAT HUNGER IS
Grandma Bielski's article in the Fremont Tribune I Know What Hunger Is Pic Caption One- Freda Bielskis talks about when the Polish government collapsed during World War II and how printed currency then became worthless. "You could cover a room with paper money and it was no good." she said. Pic Caption Two- Freda Bielskis of Fremont talks about her life in Europe during the Holocaust. All Bielski's siblings died during World War II, and she narrowly escaped capture from the Nazis. Today, Bielskis is pleased with her life which revolves around family, church, and the local senior center. FREMONT WOMAN RECALLS HARD TIMES GROWING UP A JEWISH ORPHAN IN EUROPE DURING THE HOLOCAUST By Tammy Real-Mckeighan In her nightmares, Freda Bielskis is running. A drunken soldier is chasing at her, swearing and calling her names. She knows terrible things will happen if he catches her-- so she races through a muddy field until she can hardly breathe. She awakens from such nightmares, screaming. She can't tell herself that the bad dream isn't real. It was real --once-- back in the early 1940's when war raged throughout Europe and she was a Jewish teenager just trying to stay alive. Now 80, Bielskis lives in Fremont, where life revolves around family, church and weekday visits to the senior center. Bielskis is a small dark haird woman, who claps her hands when hearing delightful news. She is quick to offer a chair to a guest, and a big s ile seems to take up most of her face as she talks about sharing a meal or playing games at the center. A lavendar colored certificate on her refrigerator dubs her the "Best Hugger" at the Fremont Adult Senior Center in 2004. Such things don't reflect her sad childhood-- times when she begged for bread or endured terrifying trips to a police station during the Holocaust. All Bielskis' siblings died during World War II and she narrowly escaped capture from the Nazis. Even now, six decades after the war, she is still amazed to be alive. Her birth name was Fruma Meierov, and she was born in 1924 -- the youngest of 7 children -- in Belarus, which was part of Poland. Although teased at school because she was Jewish, she has good memories of her childhood -- including times when her mother, Yentl, took food to police and teachers and neighbors during the passover. That pleasant childhood faded quickly. Bielskis was 13 when her father, Kurseal, died of an infected leg in 1937. Her mother died the next year, and the siblings were on their own trying to make a living. She lived with a grandfather until his death and later went to a Russian-run orphanage where she helped in the kitchen and went to school. She remembers when the Germans invaded poland and began bombing her village. "A lot of the kids had a place to go, but I had no place to go," she said. An instructor sent Bielskis and other children into a stable, made vacant after Russians confiscated the horses for the war. Sometimes people brought food to the youngsters, but mostly they had to go from door to door. Villagers gave them dried pieces of bread which they soaked in cold water. Sometimes the children got a potato or a small bottle of milk. Sometimes Bielskis ate a carrot she pulled from a nearby field. A field could be a dangerous place for a child. Orphans learned to wear their coats inside out so they could blend in with the ground and not look like soldiers to bombers overhead. One times, Bielskis broke out in sores from head to toe after lying in dirty water. An elderly woman took her in for a while, and Bielskis slept on the floor of a one room house, next to a goat of whom she was deathly afraid. The woman had so little food that she would divide a single slice of bread into three pieces for Bielski's breakfast, lunch, and supper. Then after Bielskis began to recover, she had to leave, there just wasn't enough food. Bielskis continued, going from house to house and village to village trying to find a place to stay. One day, a girl recognized Bielskis in a field and wanted her shoes. When Bielskis wouldn't give them up, the girl turned her in to police, who took her to the station. The police chief wasn't in, so she had to wait. "I was terrified," she said. "I was shaking like a leaf. I'd heard about concentration camps, but I didn't believe it. Why would anybody want to do anything like that?" She'd also heard about people -- even babies-- who were shot and thrown into trenches -- and how some were still alive when they fell in. Bielskis, however, had made an earlier decision that proved invaluable. While Bielskis was still in the Russian-run orphanage, a teacher urged her to change her name. "I thought, 'Why would I want to change my name? I haven't done anything. Why would they want to kill me?" The teacher prevailed, and Bielskis changed her name to Vera Katzman, so people would think she was German."That name saved my life," she said. Something else helped, too. The police chief didn't return that day so she was taken by wagon to another orphanage -- where another girl recognized her. Unwilling to risk another trip to the police station, Bielskis ran away in the middle of the night. Gradually, Bielskis made her way to a market where she was directed to a woman at a table. Clutching what few clothes she had bundled in a newspaper, Bielskis asked if she could work for the woman. The woman's husband took one look at the forlorn child and agreed. But life got no better. "She was very nasty to me," Bielskis said of the woman. "When she had company, she was very nice. Shed have Polish sausage and bread and butter and eggs, and she'd say 'Come on, Vera have something to eat' in front of people, but when nobody was there, she wouldn't hardly give me nothing." One day after Bielskis ground flour, the woman made bread, which she put on a high shelf. When the woman wasn't around, the hungry girl climbed on a table, cut a slice of the hot bread, and hid it under her pillow. The woman returned, found bread crumbs on the knife and confronted Bielskis. "My heart was pounding," Bielskis said. "I thought she was going to take the bread away from me." Bielskis said she was hungry and admitted to taking the bread. "She didn't scold me or beat me or nothing." Bielskis said. That night, Bielskis ate the delicious bread. Another day, one of the woman's friends was making a dress from a blue'dyed bedsheet so Bielskis would have something to wear to church. Bielskis was at the other woman's home when the German bombs hit a house across the road. The house blew apart into hundreds of tiny pieces. "I was scared to death," she said. "In my head, I can still see the pieces flying." Eventually, the mean woman's brother, who knew Bielskis was Jewish, came and got her to help his sickly wife clean house and raise their two sons. Bielskis had no shoes, so he stayed up all night to make her some from an old pair of boots. "I was so happy I was kissing the shoes and kissing him and his wife,"she said, "they were so good to me!" The man hid her in a cellar when Germans came through the area to look for Jews and partisans. Terrified, Bielskis could hear the soldiers walking around overhead and speaking German. Had they been caught hiding her, the family would have been shot and Bielskis sent to a concentration camp. One day, the kind man was found shot to death in a field, and his widow said she couldn't afford to keep her anymore." I didn't want to go, but I had to go," she said. Again she searched for a place to stay. She found a couple with three sons, Bielskis watched the children, helped clean house and worked i nthe garden. She still remembers the night the husband made moonshine and took her with him to the forest to help. He expected her to sample it, then took a couple bottles to a friend's home and left her all alone. She was terrified until his wife came and got her and the rest of the brew. After a while, that family couldn't afford to keep her either. She eventually went to another orphanage where she lived until the war's end. She worked for a while in a camp dishing up food for servicemen and concentration camp survivors. At one point, Bielskis tried to find her brothers and sisters. She walked for miles and found her home, but other people were living there, She learned that one sister, Tipke, was killed by a grenade. A brother, Shawah, was in the Russian Army when he died by the black sea. She believes other siblings either were killed by bombs or died in concentration camps. A young russian from a concentration camp would become her husband. "He followed me everywhere, and we ended up getting married," she said She and Nikoli Borisow wed in 1945 and had two children by the time they'd planned to sail to America in 1950. Before they left, the little family sold everything they could, then boarded an old troop ship bound for the United States. The voyage was horrendous. Families were separated aboard the ship -- men downstairs and women upstairs. The couple's little son was tied to a bed. During the voyage, the ship got lost, and the vessel hit a rock. An airplane was sent to guide the ship to New York as the 9 day trip stretched to 11.In the meantime, Bielskis was among many of the thousands of passengers who became horribly sea sick. [Tara's note- Grandma told me about this. She was sick for the entire voyage. She was too sick to care for her youngest son, there was no one else to care for him and they would not get her husband, so they tied her baby to a bed for her to care for when she could] When they arrived in New York, the family learned that promises of a job and home didn't exist and waited days before an for them. "It took me forever to go to a church after that," she said. "I was so bitter." One man had a home where they stayed, as her husband went from house to house trying to find a job. He found custodial work at an apartment complex until the owner died. The growing family moved from place to place as he sought work. They were in Michigan, where he brought in hay from a farm until harvest ended. He later worked at General Motors until he was laid of and then as a temporary laborer for a company that installed windows. In 1961, he had a slight heart attack and was on disability. Nikoly was 68 when he died in 1968, leaving behind a wife and eight children. [Tara's note- Grandma was then 44, they were 24 years apart. They married when she was 24 and he was 48. She once told me that she didn't have any other options. I can't say for sure, but I don't know if my grandmother was ever in love with my grandfather.] His widow worked in restaurants at night and did housework for people during the day. She was working at a restaurant in 1971 when she met her second husband, Kaz Bielskis. He died in 2001, and she moved to Fremont that year. Its been a while since Freda Bielskis has had a nightmare, and she prays the terrible dreams never return. She remains affected by her past, decades after the war. But on effect has proven positive for visitors to her home. "When somebody comes over, the first thing I ask is 'Do you want to have something to eat?' I've fed so many people," she said, adding, "I know what hunger is." *** Not long ago, Bielski's daughter, Sonjia, bought her a large'print Bible. Bielskis was drawn to the book of Job. She could relate to the story of a man who'd lost almost everything and then who was greatly blessed by God. Is Bielskis blessed and happy now? "I'm very happy now.":she said.
BIELSKIS START IN THE U.S. DID NOT COME WITHOUT TROUBLES
BIELSKIS START IN THE US DID NOT COME WITHOUT TROUBLES By Tammy Real McKeighan Freda Bielskis understands the hardships immigrants can face -- and the kindness of some strangers. In the 1950's, she and her little family came to the United States. Although told that a job and home awaited them in West Virginia, the family learned that wasn't the case. The first job her husband, Nikoly Borisow, landed was at an Oklahoma farm. They lived with their children, George, 2, and Carl, 6 months, in a house with no running water or toilet. Borisow was expected to bring hay in from the field. The farmer also decided that Freda was supposed to help put milk into bottles in the barn. It was winter, and their little son, George, shivered in the cold while Freda worked. She thought she had no choice but to leave the baby in the house alone rather than expose him to the frigid temperatures. Before long, Borisow told his wife and little boy to go back into the house. The farmer didn't like that, and soon decided that the family couldn't stay there anymore. At one point, the family was moving to Michigan when their car broke down. "People put us in a hotel... and brought milk and cookies for the kids," she said. A woman looked through a phone book and found a Russian church. There, church people helped the family find an apartment and put up the deposit for utilities. "I was so happy," she said. Freda has other memories, like the day her husband brought home his first paycheck. "We were jumping and dancing and crying and laughing -- all at the same time!," she said. One time, however, the family had purchased a stove and had made a couple payments when the money ran out. Some men came to the house to reposess the stove. Freda pleaded with them not to take away her only means of cooking. "That's all I have for the babies to heat up a little milk," Freda told them. " Give us a chance, I'll pay it off as soon as possible." The men relented. Later, Freda was busy caring for her children when she heard the doorbell. She sent George -- the oldest child-- to see who was at the door. Nobody was there, but George found a box so big that he couldn't carry it. The box was loaded with potatoes, bread, milk and bones for making soup. Eventually, the family was able to pay for the stove. Today, Freda lives in Fremont. Her son, Carl, is deceased, but she cherishes time spent with her children George, John, Elsa, Sonjia, Bo, Cuddy, and Tiny, along with her grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren
