Disciplines

Jewish Studies

Abstract

Summarizer: Sophia Maier

Anita Norich was born to two Holocaust survivor parents in a Displaced Persons camp called Föhrenwald in Germany. Despite difficulties acquiring visas because of her father’s left-wing political views, the family moved to the United States in March of 1957, settling on Hunts Point Avenue in the South Bronx. In Hunts Point, Norich attended PS 48, played outside and in a nearby park, and began her love for reading at the library. Starting kindergarten, she didn’t speak Englsih, and Norich describes the total immersion environment she was placed into. She felt it was cruel the teacher would only speak to her in English, despite knowing a language Norich spoke. Their assimilated neighbor, who they took to translate at the school, told the school secretary her name was Anita, because Chana, her real name, was not American. By the time she was in 6th grade, Norich was writing controversial editorials as the co-editor of the elementary school newspaper.

By the mid-‘60s, the neighborhood got too rough, and Norich, her older brother, and their parents moved to Wallace Avenue. Norich describes the neighborhood as mixed Jewish, Irish, and Italian. There she attended Frank D. Whalen Junior High 135, where she was in the Special Progress classes. At Columbus High School, overcrowding led to staggered schedules, and Norich avoided the cafeteria and bathrooms because of the rough treatment of “nerdy” kids.

Because her parents could not afford a piano, Norich practiced at home on a cardboard keyboard, and continued learning and enjoying music, despite her self proclaimed lack of musical talent. The family ate at home and kept kosher. Her parents would visit other survivors from their home town, Łódź, and Norich says the difference between her and people with American-born parents was the amount of relatives they had compared to her. She does not consider her family to have been religious, attending synagogue on the High Holy Days and observing the holidays in a modified way, but she remebers the synagogues they attended and her limited Hebrew education. They didn’t celebrate American holidays like Thanksgiving or Halloween.

Norich attended Barnard College, thinking she would become a teacher. She decided to get a terminal master’s in English to improve her pay as a teacher, but at the end of the degree she was offered a fellowship to complete her PhD in English literature. During her PhD, she wanted to learn Yiddish and use it as part of her comparitive literature, having no formal education in her first language. Her father worked with her to learn to read Yiddish, and she became a professor of Yiddish.

Norich explains she has no nostalgia for the Bronx, though she fondly remembers spending time in Bronx Park and the Botanical Gardens. The Bronx, to her, was all she knew for a long time, just living her life. She spent 30 years teaching in Michigan, before returning to New York.

Keywords: Holocaust, Displaced Persons camp, Föhrenwald, Joint Relief Committee, Hunts Point, Wallace Avenue, PS 48, library, English learning, assimilation, Junior High School 135, Christopher Columbus High School, music, kosher, Halloween, rabbi, Barnard College, Columbis University, education, teaching, Yiddish, literature, socialism, Botanical Gardens, Michigan, Upper West Side

Download

Share

COinS