It was not until Estelle (nee Enia Feld) Nadel was in her forties that she could share with her grown children the full account of her experiences as a Holocaust survivor. Now, knowing that there are few left to speak out against those who deny that six million Jews were murdered in history’s most horrible chapters, she feels compelled to share her story with the world.

Estelle was five years old and living with her parents and four siblings in Borek, Poland, when World War II broke out. Her father Reuven and older sister Sonia worked in a nearby refinery; her older brother Moishe worked at an airport. Her mother Chaya supplemented their meager living by raising and selling vegetables. An excellent baker, Chaya used those skills for the weddings and christenings of their non-Jewish neighbors. 

Although life as Jews in Poland deteriorated rapidly under German occupation, Reuven, a devoutly religious man, remained optimistic. “He always told us that nothing will happen to us, that [God] will take care of us,” Estelle said. His attitude changed on a day in 1942, when the Germans ransacked the Feld home looking for weapons and valuables, of which they had none. 

Two weeks later, the Nazis began rounding up the Jews for deportation.  Chaya, Estelle, and her two younger brothers, Stephan and Mel, watched in horror as they crouched in a nearby field. Reuven, Sonia, and Moishe were herded into nearby cattle cars, taking them to places unknown. Realizing they could not return home, Chaya found a hiding place in the attic of a sympathetic neighbor’s  home. Three months later, another Polish neighbor recognized Chaya when she was on one of her nocturnal searches for food. She was arrested, brought to the local jail, and shot that morning by a German who was responsible for killing any found Jews. 

The three siblings remained together in their hiding place until Mel, who was fair and blond, left in hopes that he could pass as a non-Jew. Soon after, the Gestapo pulled Estelle and Stephan out of their hiding spot, beat Stephan, and moved them to the same jail in Jedlicze where Chaya had been killed three months earlier. The jailer threw the two into the basement, where they spent a cold, terrifying night, certain they would follow their mother’s fate in the morning.

A small barred window high up in the cell became their salvation. First Stephan squeezed through the tight opening. A few minutes later, Estelle also escaped. 

The seven-year-old found herself frightened and alone when she realized that her brother had abandoned her. She wandered into a garden in a nearby home, where a woman spotted her and furtively brought her inside. The woman, the wife of one of the Polish jailers, refused to hide her, but she agreed to Estelle’s pleas to take her through the fields to the local bathhouse. From there, Estelle found her way to where her uncle, her aunt, who was ill with cancer, and their daughter were being hidden by the Karowskis, a Polish Christian family. The following morning, Stephan joined them. The group hid for two years in an attic over a stable, where they could not even stand up. 

In 1945, Russian soldiers marched in and liberated the area where Estelle and her family had been hidden from the Germans. The group returned to Borek, and Estelle and Stephan were reunited with Mel. Her aunt died of cancer soon after the reunion. Despite their “freedom,” they knew people were still hunting down Jews. The refugees obtained false papers and left Poland first for Czechoslovakia and then Russian-occupied Hungary. The uncle, his sister with whom he had been reunited, and his daughter left for Australia upon the invitation of another relative. 

The three siblings then fled to a safer haven, American-occupied Austria, where they landed in a displaced person’s camp. An American soldier, hearing that they were orphans, suggested the three siblings go to America. The Joint Distribution Committee, part of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), agreed to sponsor the orphans. 

After two years of setbacks and red tape, and Estelle, now 12, and Stephan arrived in New York City on April 1, 1947. They reunited with Mel, who had arrived earlier and had already obtained work. “He already had a job in New Jersey and was all dressed up. He looked already like an American,” Estelle recalled in a January 27, 2022, interview with Dianne Derbey for KOAA News5 in Colorado.

While Stephan started his own job search, Estelle stayed in a hotel room watching American television to learn English. Soon after, Stephan told his sister that he could not care for her; she would be  better off in foster care. Initially crushed by her brother’s decision, Estelle was adapted by a Long Island family. They later relocated to California, where the seventeen-year-old Estelle met Fred Nadel. The couple married and spent most of their lives in the San Fernando Valley, California. Fred ran a  scrap metal business, and Estelle operated  a jewelry business while raising their three sons. 

It took many years for Estelle to talk about the six years of terror and displacement during WWII. Although she never hid the fact that she was a Holocaust survivor, it was only when her children were adults that Estelle could share her story with them. She took the advice of her daughter-in-law, who was a teacher, and began speaking about her experiences in a local school. Over the next forty years, Estelle told her story in hundreds of venues, including schools, religious organizations, and other public forums, first in California and later in Wyoming and Colorado, where she and Fred moved to be closer to their children and grandchildren. She and her two brothers also videotaped their experiences through Spielberg’s Shoah Visual History Foundation. 

Before their move to Colorado, Estelle, two of her brothers, and several other relatives visited Poland to retrace their past lives. They confronted the man who turned in their mother, who indefensibly had no remorse. The three had a tearful heartfelt reunion with members of the Karowski family. Stephan had a face-to-face with the German prison guard, who said that he had placed them in that particular cell in hopes they could escape through the barred window. 

On Holocaust Memorial Day on that same trip, Estelle and family members joined others in the annual International March for the Living (MOTL). The participants, who numbered in the thousands, walked silently from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex built during World War II. It was there through its Book of Names that Estelle was able to confirm her father, sister, and brother had been murdered in Auschwitz. 

Estelle returned to the MOTL event four more times as both a participant and as one of the survivors through the Los Angeles-based Builders of Jewish Education (BJE), which sponsors an experiential education program for high school students to learn about their Jewish past, present, and future. In 2022, after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of survivors able to attend had been so reduced that the first-person accounts were now being provided via Zoom. 

Surviving the Holocaust was a matter of faith; speaking about her experiences was a matter of truth. “It took me many, many years to be able to talk about it,” Estelle said. “I’ve talked now, hundreds of times, and things have not changed. I still cry every time. I re-live the whole scenario.” Before her death in November 2023, she completed a middle grade graphic book with co-author Bethany Strout and illustrator Sammy Savos. The Girl Who Sang: A Holocaust Memoir of Hope and Survival, describing her experiences, was published by Roaring Book Press in January 2024. 

Although her life was filled with pain and loss, she still called her survival and her life a miracle. As a witness to the Holocaust’s horrors, she felt compelled to speak out and to  rebuke those who deny that it happened. “There are very few survivors left, and I want the world to know that there was a Holocaust,” she was quoted in a May 19, 2020 article for BJE. “There’s so much denial that every time I get a chance to tell my story, I feel like I’m doing something against it.”  She also hoped that the efforts of her and other Holocaust survivors to tell their stories would prevent future holocausts. “People need to remember what can happen when others demonize races or ethnicities or religions,” she said. “When the stories remain crystalline, maybe the world will see fewer genocides.”

Originally published January 5, 2023.