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Holocaust Memorial Education Center

Shimon and Sara Birnbaum Jewish Community Center

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Descendant Profile

JOSEPH FELDMAN

JOSEPH

FELDMAN

(SECOND GENERATION)

DESCENDANT:

JOSEPH FELDMAN

  • DESCENDANT BRIEF BIOGRAPHY BY DR. JOSEPH FELDMAN

    Dr. Joseph Feldman is Board Certified in foot and ankle surgery and specializes in diabetic foot care and limb salvage. He serves as Medical Director of the Hyperbaric Wound Care Center, Chief of Podiatric Surgery and Vice Chairman of the credentials committee at East Orange General Hospital. He is also on staff at Saint Barnabas Medical Center and Saint Michael’s Medical Center.

  • DESCENDANT SUBMISSION(s):

    TESTIMONY BY JOSEPH FELDMAN FROM MARGIT, A TEENAGER'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE HOLOCAUST AND BEYOND (APPENDIX C)

    None of us can fully know the horrors my mother experienced,  but at least we now have some awareness of these through all the books that  have been pub­lished and all the facts that have been revealed about the Holo­caust. We also know how our parents' sufferings in the Holocaust have affected the Second Generation.

    One  personal  lesson I have learned  is the  importance of family. My mother lost virtually all of the family with whom she had grown up and shared  the earliest years of her life. In one day nearly all of them disappeared, including my grandparents. I have learned from her experience  to cherish  my parents.

    The Holocaust has taught me that one cannot  know what will happen a year or even a day from now. So we must live every day to the fullest and take nothing for granted;  above all, we must love and appreciate those closest to us while they are still here.

    In high school I learned what it meant  to be a member of a minority and from expressing who I was, and I even got in trouble a few times when I fought back after being called names. In college I became friendly with a member of the Plainfield Country  Club. By this time I was conspicuously wearing a Jewish star around my neck.

    Once at the club I wore a shirt open at the neck, exposing the star. My friend advised me to conceal it while there. I responded by opening another  button. Then  I walked out, never to return. But my feelings about being Jewish were positive as well as defensive. I belonged to Young Judea, went to Jewish camps dur­ing the summer, attended religious services, and maintained a proud Jewish identity.

    One of my most vivid memories was of my trip to Hungary with my mother. I was not even bar mitzvah at that time. While visiting  my paternal  grandfather's  synagogue, I ascended  the bimah and began praying alongside the rabbi. I remember meet­ing my grandfather's  brother Henrik,  the only survivor of my mother's Hungarian family and seeing the emotion and anguish in his eyes. I also remember my Israel trip with my mother  in 1981 when  I was twenty-one. At  one  point,  I remember people were struggling to get on one of the Israeli buses, and before me flashed an image of the suffocating struggle for breath­ing room in the railroad cars bound for Auschwitz.

    I have had a great deal of trouble dealing with God. How could God have allowed what happened to happen  to His children?  I have never received a satisfactory answer, but the most unsatisfactory  answer came from my teacher  at Hebrew school,  who responded  by taking a pencil  and  breaking  it in half, simply to indicate that God can do what God wishes. I will always be a proud Jew, but I will always have questions  about God's role in the Holocaust.

    As for my mother,  as long as I have known her she has never lost her faith or her ability  to care for others,  whether the  young or the elderly or the  infirmed, besides caring for her family. Her  ability to talk  plainly  and eloquently  about  her experiences to all ages and all groups, including Germans,  has never  ceased to amaze me. I not only  love her for what  she does, but respect her commitment as well.

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  • related textual material:

    Joseph Feldman’s Testimony about his mother, Margit Feldman

    JOSEPH FELDMAN "TESTIMONY" ABOUT HIS MOTHER, MARGIT FELDMAN

  • Sources and Credits:

    Credits:

    The SSBJCC Holocaust Memorial and Education Center gratefully acknowledge permissions received to reproduce the appendices of Margit: A Teenager’s Journey through the Holocaust and Beyond from the State of New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education (2003)

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