This article appeared in the April 15 Sunday edition of the Miami Herald
Inseparable: Pearl and Simon Gottesman met in 1940. They dated before the war, were separated during it, and reunited after liberation. They have been married for 61 years.
(In the Herald, there is a pre-World War II portrait of her family. Only she survived the Holocaust. The photo hangs in Marvin and Alice's home).
After liberation, a Joyful Reunion
''She was very beautiful and I loved her,'' he says. ``I said, `Next week I'll come again. Let's go to the movies . . . '''
''So we went,'' says Pearl.
Simon would have married her right then, but ''it was wartime, and her parents wouldn't let her. They said I would go away, and that's what happened.'' He was deported to Bor, a Yugoslavian labor camp.
For a time Simon was able to smuggle letters to Pearl. He never heard back.
''In 1944, they took her whole village, the Jewish population,'' he says. ``Everybody knew that.''
After liberation, each went to Prague, where the Red Cross posted lists of names.
'You'd go and ask, `Did anybody look for me?' It happened that she came to look, and we found each other,'' Simon recalls.
''Right away I recognized him,'' says Pearl, who ''went through hell'' in Auschwitz.
They headed for his village, where Simon found an older brother, one of three who'd lived. Three sisters perished.
''Either marry her or tell her it's over,'' his brother ordered. 'I said, `Pearl, we're getting married this Sunday.' ''
Simon borrowed a jacket. Pearl wore a suit. A friend sold a pair of boots and paid for the reception.
Pearl initially resisted.
'She said, `No! We are waiting for my father and mother to come home.' Meanwhile, I met this guy who said he saw when they killed them.
'I said, `If they come home, we'll make another wedding.' I knew they're not coming.''
For awhile, ''We lived like there is no tomorrow,'' says Simon. ``We were going out Saturday nights to parties. When we got papers to go to America, we didn't want to. When the communists took over, naturally we went.''
They settled in Brooklyn. Simon bought a relative's dairy store.
''As a parent, I was very strict,'' says Simon. ``I always wanted my kids to have school. I was deprived of it. I finished high school but when I got ready for college, there was a law that Jews could not go.''
They moved to South Florida in 1982, after Simon retired from a sweater factory. Here, as in Brooklyn, they live in a survivor-intensive community.
''They are our family,'' says Simon. ``We play cards together. We mingle.''
How often does the Holocaust come up in conversation?
He chuckles: ``Always.''
