Celia Henick Feldman

When Celia Henick Feldman z”l arrived by boat in New York City at the age of 23, the second half of her life began. Her roots were in Lodz, Poland, where she was born in1923. Life was hard for her, her younger brother, Morris, her two parents, and the extended family. Work was difficult to find and her family suffered a lot of sickness. Still, there was much love and Celia greatly enjoyed school, where she loved to read and learn.

Celia was an extraordinary woman of uncommon courage and a will to live. She was 16 years old when the Nazis came, and she spent the war in a state of constant and terrible suffering. She survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Radom Ghetto, numerous slave labor camps, and a death march, as well as extreme hunger and deprivation. The Holocaust claimed many beloved relatives, but both her parents and her brother survived and were reunited in the Displaced Persons camps after the war. Also in the camps she met a fellow survivor, Samuel Feldman z”l, and the two were soon engaged.

Despite these hardships, Celia had a zest for life that never wavered. She maintained a remarkable resilience, a deep well of courage, and enormous strength. She never allowed the dark clouds of the Holocaust to overcome her commitment to living a full life and to experiencing great love and joy. Despite a lack of modern education, she had an incisive wit and great intelligence. From her living room she gave every TV pundit a run for their money, opining for hours on current events, politics, and the daily news.

As a young girl in Poland, Celia would ask her mother, “where is America? Is the sky any different in America?” In 1946 she arrived in New York on board the Marine Perch, passing the Statue of Liberty and feeling like life had started anew. For $13 a month she and Sam rented an apartment on Henry Street in the Lower East Side and she took work as a seamstress. Life wasn’t easy, she remembered, but they were free people, living amongst their friends, speaking Yiddish, learning to live as newcomers to America, and slowly but surely rebuilding their lives.

On November 29, 1947, Celia and Sam were married in New York City, on the same day that the United Nations voted to create a Jewish state in Palestine. For the rest of her life Celia maintained a connection to Israel and a deep love for the Jewish people, culture, and history. She visited Israel several times and she and Sam donated to many Jewish causes and organizations.

The family settled into American life in Long Island. She was unquestionably the matriarch of what became an extended family of children, grandchildren, and great-children. Her charisma was boundless and she was the central presence of every room. Her spirit was infectious, remarkable, and amusing all at once, and all who came into contact with her felt her positive impact.

“The Holocaust will never be forgotten,” she wrote in her 1999 memoirs, Bittersweet Memories. “The pain remains in our hearts forever. But we managed to survive, to bring up a family, to go on with our lives, and teach our children to cherish their freedom and to be proud of their heritage.”

Celia was deeply loved and cherished by her entire family. They loved to eat her food, listen to her stories, and celebrate all of life’s milestones with her, from birthdays to anniversaries to bar and bat mitzvahs.

Celia passed away on May 2, 2020, just shy of her 97th birthday. She is survived by her three children, Lorraine (Steve), Alan (Joanne), and Paul (Judy), eight grandchildren (Julie (Mike), Jason, Lauren (Joe), Jessica (Brian), Andrew (Megan), Eric, Benjamin, Josh) and seven great-grandsons. Her memory will be a blessing to all who knew her.

Donations can be made to organizations that promote Holocaust research and education to combat hatred and bigotry. inSIGHT in Palm Beach County: https://insightthrougheducation.org/donate/ or

Jewish Family and Children's Services Holocaust Center of Northern California: https://donate.jfcs.org/give/176103/#!/donation/checkout