SAVED BY THE NANNY, ADOPTED BY THE REBBE
MRS. MIRIAM FELLIG
Before the war, life in Warsaw was beautiful. My father was a chemist who did quite well financially, and although they were not very religious, my mother had come from a religious family, and she kept the house kosher.
But then Hitler came, and everything changed. After we moved into the ghetto, my father got in touch with my gentile nanny and sent me to her. She was like a second mother to me, and I stayed with her until the war was over, which was when I found out that my family had not survived. Barely a teenager, I didn’t want to leave my nanny, but she insisted: “You have your own people to go to.”
There were various Jewish organizations taking care of orphans, and they sent me around to different orphanages, a couple of which were run by Lubavitch. These organizations tried to find out if I had any relatives in other countries who could take me in, but I didn’t have any. Eventually, a couple of years after the war, the Canadian Jewish Congress wanted to bring in a group of 500 orphans, and I ended up being one of those youngsters. We arrived in the port of Halifax on a big boat, before being sent to Montreal.
It was there, at the age of sixteen, that I met my husband. He was originally from Vienna, but had already been living in Montreal for a few years, after being taken in and then hired as a teacher by the Lubavitcher yeshivah there. He had an old car, and every day he would come to visit me. He must have liked me and, in May 1950, when I was eighteen, we got married. I was nervous about it, and had absolutely no money, but our wedding was still very nice, and my husband made me feel safe and secure.
In 1951, my husband decided that we would go with our son, Yanky, to New York for the holiday of Simchat Torah, in order to see the Rebbe for the first time. This was the year that the Rebbe had succeeded his father-in-law and assumed the position, but I had already heard so much about him and was curious to meet him.
We drove to New York, and in 770, we came into a hall where there were a lot of people sitting and waiting for a chance to see the Rebbe. The Rebbe’s secretary told us that it would be a long wait, and everybody seemed to get more nervous and more excited as time went on; some people were crying, some were laughing, and others were reciting Psalms.
Eventually, the secretary opened the door, and we went into the Rebbe’s office. I looked at the Rebbe’s beautiful eyes, and I felt relaxed. He had a kind smile, and there was a very pleasant atmosphere in the room.
“Is there anything you want to say?” asked the Rebbe.
“Yes, Rebbe,” I said, and I told him how we had gotten married, had a baby, and now I was expecting my second child. “I would like to have a lot of children and raise them well!” Hitler had taken everything away from me, but I resolved to restore what was lost by having many children, who would want to have children of their own.
