This is my first pass at trying to fill in Gina's years in Palestine, from 1938 until 1945. Gina used to tell lots of stories about her years in Palestine, but even back then they all got garbled in my head, so this may be a little incoherent (to say nothing of inaccurate).
To start this chapter, and help you get oriented, here's a geography lesson on our Israeli connections. The map and notes are from Aliza Link, a second cousin. Aliza is my age, and lives with her husband Dan in a suburb of Jerusalem.
[To fill in some names that might not be familiar to you: Golda Hochbaum Mendel, Aliza's mother, was a cousin of Daddy's. Tamar Landau (aka Berta Hochbaum) I hope to write about again soon. She is a first cousin once-removed of Daddy's, and was a young camp survivor, as was her husband Simcha. Shlomo Hochbaum you have already heard about. He was our war hero cousin who singlehandedly stopped the Syrian tanks in 1948.]
In any case, Regina was in an agricultural school in Nahalal, a moshav, or agricultural community that was one of the earliest in Palestine. Moshe Dayan's family lived there and he had gone to the same school (before Regina got there). Regina's background was not exactly agricultural, however, and the story she always told was that they told her to milk a cow and she fainted dead away.
So they seem to have put her to work peeling and slicing vegetables and cleaning pots (Gina was a superb dishwasher later in her life....this may be where it comes from.) She said, "I cried bitterly from the onions."
Golda Meir visited the school once. She left a lasting impression on Regina, because she was a chain smoker. (Gina was, too.)
In the beginning, money was not an issue. Gina's schooling was paid for, and her clothes were paid for. Her cousin Golda, however, "was in the worst kibbutz I had ever seen. Torn shoes, and Arabs shooting from all sides. So whatever I had I gave her." My notes say that Golda was living in a tent. We'll have to see what Aliza says about this.
Pretty soon the war was on, and Gina decided she was too old to stay in school. And she had no interest in agriculture - "I couldn't kill a worm. Couldn't stand the blood." Marta sent her 10 Marks every month, and so did Dave and Erna. She used to travel a lot among her German friends and spend the money...."I was a welcome guest."
She seems to have moved from Nahalal to a kibbutz, where she spent nine months. I think this may be Kibbutz Shamir, in its early days, near Haifa. (It has since moved close to the Golan Heights and become very prosperous.) There is an address in my father's old address book which I THINK says Kibbutz Shamir, with a Haifa PO Box address.
They opened up a brick factory, and Gina worked there cutting bricks. She was the only woman in the factory and very proud of that. "I was tops in every field. Wasn't afraid of anything." We have a great picture:
I'm not sure how long that lasted. Gina said, "I wanted to be a nurse in the worst way. I went to Jerusalem, but they chose someone else."
I'm not sure what the year is, but Regina is now in Jerusalem with no money. Getting work is very difficult, because of the influx of refugees. "Hundreds and hundreds of refugees, and absolutely no way to get work."
She stayed with her friend Leah, seen later in the picture below in the flower shop she and her husband later owned (in Jerusalem?).
But Leah had lost her job and they only had two pounds saved. Gina borrowed clothes from her and went to work for six weeks for a farmer whose wife was sick. She took care of his kid and cooked and picked strawberries until the wife got better. Gina says she sent Golda a half a pound, and gave Leah back her clothes.
When that job ended, Gina wound up working two jobs. She cleaned at Pension Ascher, run by someone she knew (Esther Borgia (sp?)), for four hours a day and worked for a Dr. Auerbach who was a professor somewhere for four hours a day.
I'm not sure how long that lasted either, but Gina's connections seemed to have helped her, and she wound up living in the apartment of a doctor who had gone into the army, taking care of his furniture and his books. That seems to have lasted two years, until the Arab who owned the house was released from jail and took back his house, and Gina had to leave.
I think the rest of Gina's years in Palestine were more of the same. Scrounging out a living, but being generous (possibly over-generous) to her friends. My mother used to complain that while Regina was in Palestine and my parents had very little money, Regina used to beg my father to send money, and then, when he did, she bought umbrellas to give to her friends.
Regina was always very social. Here's a quote for you: "Boys were afraid to bring me home. I said, if you are afraid to bring me home, how are you going to marry me?"
She never did get married. My father said she was too fussy. (This was said as a lesson to me.) She always did have a warm spot for Israel and her friends. Leah and her husband used to come visit her for weeks in NY, sleeping in her bed while Gina slept on the sofa, and Gina took frequent trips back to Israel to visit.
Regina emigrated to the US in 1945. The war was over, and what remained of her immediate family was here. She got typhoid fever on the ship over, and was taken off the ship to recover in a hospital in Spain. She always complained that she had thick, wavy hair until she got sick. She sailed from Bilbao in September 1945, arriving in Philadelphia on October 6th.
Here's the ship manifest:
And here is a picture taken upon her arrival:
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| L to R: Daddy, Aunt Hilda, Regina, Uncle Sam and Aunt Selma |
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