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Goldie Jacoby

Goldie Jacoby was born on May 14 th , 1937. She lived with her parents and brother in Katowice, Poland,
which Nazi Germany annexed in September 1939. When Goldie’s family in 1942 visited her
grandparents in Frishtak, a Polish small town, they found despairing sadness, the Nazis on the march.
Goldie, 5-6, witnessed unforgettable horrors.
She saw a weeping young mother and her own mother helping place her newborn baby in a suitcase and
close the lid—killing the infant herself rather than see it tortured and murdered by Nazis. Where Jews
were ordered to assemble, Goldie witnessed Gestapo wrenching babies from their mothers’ arms and
hurling them at a cement wall, and she saw Nazis murder her grandparents with rifle butts. She and her
brother saw Germans hold a bayonet to the throat of their mother, who was stalling, claiming she didn’t
know where Goldie’s father and uncle were, while giving them time to flee.
Running and hiding for survival and begging for food from the Polish farmers who would not help a Jew
and chased them away. So they were hungry, thirsty, filthy with lice and sores.
Hidden elsewhere, and three other relatives. A kind-hearted Christian farmer risked hiding the 10 family
members in his barn.
In a small two-pig sty, four children and six adults were jammed together on straw-covered cement for
almost 3 years. They sat—Goldie “celebrated” her sixth birthday. More childhood-stealing horrors
awaited her both before and after Russians liberated Poland on January 27, 1945.
After immigrating to New York, Goldie faced new challenges. Lacking English skills, she was assigned at
age 11-12, to first grade and ridiculed (BULLIED) as a foreigner. In 1953 she married George Jacoby,
(PASSED) a Holocaust survivor of 7 concentration camps. They moved to Los Angeles 1954, and Palm
Springs, CA in 1978 and have two daughters and one granddaughter. A Holocaust educator, Goldie
speaks to school audiences about her experiences during the darkest time in history.
Her booklets:
“What Holocaust?” and her Husband’s book “God Forsaken.”

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