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Lee Goldman Kikel, of Pittsburgh, tells her father\u2019s story of surviving the Holocaust and moving to America at the Butler Area Public Library on Wednesday evening, April 29, 2026. Sol McCormick\/Butler Eagle<\/p>\n
A Pittsburgh woman is fulfilling her father\u2019s wish by sharing the story of how he survived the Holocaust and came to America.<\/p>\n
Lee Goldman Kikel presented on her 2019 memoir, \u201cPerseverance: One Holocaust Survivor\u2019s Journey From Poland to America,\u201d at the Butler Area Public Library on Wednesday evening, April 29.<\/p>\n
The memoir follows the story of Kikel\u2019s father, Melvin Goldman, from his prewar childhood in Poland to his experience during the Holocaust and life after the war in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
Kikel\u2019s presentation is part of a larger library initiative, \u201cBetween Two Worlds,\u201d in collaboration with the Yiddish Book Center\u2019s Public Libraries Program.<\/p>\n
Throughout the year, the library has and will be hosting reading groups, presentations and other programs exploring the role of literature in conversations about religion, assimilation, identity and immigration.<\/p>\n
Immortalizing her father\u2019s life story<\/p>\n
Kikel was able to immortalize her father\u2019s life story thanks to a number of audio cassettes he recorded in his mid-50s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t until fairly recently that I realized how significant it is that my father recorded his story on his own initiative, and in the late 1970s. My father simply \u2018talked to his tape recorder\u2019 in snippets, when he had free moments at his (Pittsburgh) jewelry store, with no one asking questions for clarification or to shape his narrative. He worked alone,\u201d Kikel wrote on her website.<\/p>\n
On the recordings, Goldman told Kikel that he wanted his story turned into a book so \u201c(people) can understand the inhumanity from man to man, what can happen when a people, no matter what race, is pointed out for religious, racial or ethnic discrimination, humiliation or persecution \u2014 and even annihilation.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said her father was born in 1923 in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, Poland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe family had been in Poland for over 400 years. They lived a typical Jewish life in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a,\u201d Kikel said.<\/p>\n
She shared some photos from her father\u2019s family at the time \u2014 including a number of uncles and aunts that she never got to meet. She said her great-aunt held on to these photos and returned them to Goldman after the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen she found out that my dad was alive, she sent him the pictures. Otherwise, I would not know what any of my family looks like,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Life in the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a Ghetto<\/p>\n
While Goldman faced antisemitism throughout his childhood, it began to boil over in the year leading up to the German invasion of Poland in 1939. When the Nazis arrived in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, they turned an area of the city \u2014 including the Goldman residence \u2014 into the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a Ghetto.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Goldmans remained in their house after the Nazis looted and stole most of the contents,\u201d Kikel said. \u201cAt that point, transports were sending people out, bringing people in and constantly, conditions worsened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Life at this time turned into a battle for survival. Jewish people were given no education, no medicine and little food. Every Jewish person was forced to wear a star patch and was not allowed to speak to anyone outside the ghetto.<\/p>\n
Kikel said her father was just 16 at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to ask people if you can think about what you were doing when you were 16. I was attending high school and happily learning how to drive. My father, on the other hand, was making belt buckles and metal containers for hand warmers for the Nazis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In 1944, the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a Ghetto was liquidated, and the populous was moved to concentration camps. The Goldman family was moved to Auschwitz.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Melvin) and his brother were sent one way, and the rest of the family the other way. That was the very last time my dad ever saw his family,\u201d Kikel said.<\/p>\n
During his time, Goldman faced beatings, dysentery and \u201csheer terror,\u201d she said. He was eventually separated from his brother, leaving him entirely alone.<\/p>\n
But in 1945, while he was being moved to Ravensbr\u00fcck, he was rescued by the Allies. He was 21 at the time.<\/p>\n
Recovery was hard, and doctors initially told him he may never walk again. However, he recovered and went on to work with orphaned children before emigrating to the United States and moving into Pittsburgh\u2019s Squirrel Hill neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Kikel said with antisemitism continually rising, her father\u2019s story is \u201cjust as important now as it was right after the war.\u201d Despite losing his family and nearly losing his life, she said he never once stopped persevering.<\/p>\n
Those interested any event in the \u201cBetween Two Worlds\u201d program can find more details at www.butlerlibrary.info\/between-two-worlds<\/a>. More information on Kikel and her memoir can be found at www.leekikel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Goldman Kikel, of Pittsburgh, tells her father\u2019s story of surviving the Holocaust and moving to America at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3035,3027,3022,3042,3048,3051,1610,3030,3028,31,3029,3034,3025,3047,3041,3024,3045,3033,3023,3036,182,3049,3039,139,3026,28,3040,73,75,74,39,3031,3044,3043,3032,3050,3038,3037,3046],"class_list":["post-180120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bruin","tag-butler","tag-butler-eagle","tag-cabot","tag-callery","tag-cherry-valley","tag-community-news","tag-connoquenessing","tag-cranberry","tag-crime","tag-east-butler","tag-eau-claire","tag-education-news","tag-evans-city","tag-fairview","tag-government-news","tag-harmony","tag-harrisville","tag-high-school-sports-news","tag-karns-city","tag-local-news","tag-mars","tag-mount-chesnut","tag-news","tag-obituaries","tag-pennsylvania","tag-petrolia","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-political-news","tag-portersville","tag-sarver","tag-saxonburg","tag-slippery-rock","tag-valencia","tag-west-liberty","tag-west-sunbury","tag-zelienople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}