"I didn't want to become SATMAR" | In Conversation with Nelly Grussgott
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- čas přidán 22. 09. 2021
- This video is part of a research project to document the way Hasidim came to America after the war and turn Williamsburg into an insular religious enclave.
Nelly Grussgott was born in 1930 in Berlin. In 1940, she and her mother fled nazi Germany for NYC, but her father could not make it out. Although Nelly and her mother were relatively modern, in 1946 her mother remarried a very pious Hasidic man, Moshe Nigreshel. The couple, along with Nelly, moved to the Williamsburg part of Brooklyn. There, Nelly's mother was expected to adapt rigid Hasidic customs like shaving her golden locks. This Nelly's mother did for life, but Nelly herself could never do it, and she struggled to understand her mother's path. Nelly moved out of Williamsburg when she got married, but her mother remained in the neighborhood until her death in 1990.
Many thanks to Nelly for the lovely conversation and for sharing her memories.
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Follow my blog on Hasidic Williamsburg at friedavizel.com/blog
For the audio-only version of this interview click here: www.spreaker.com/user/17085580/15-nelly-grussgott
To sacrifice your own life to save your wife and child...May his memory be a blessing.
A very tragic story, poor man was in so much agony as the war unfolded and he was stuck in Hungary and later taken to the camps.
What a lovely lady Nelly is. Such warmth.
Interesting story. My grandfather found his younger brother in the 1960 s in Israel. He thought he was the only survivor from the family
What a miracle!!!! Thank G-d ❤
It breaks my heart to hear these stories about the millions of lives lost and the horrible family tragedies.
Finding this a yearish later. Thank you for this. I personally know Nelly she is a really amazing person.
I wish this got more views. Nelly is so wonderful!
GREAT VIDEO! Absolutely my favorite episode! I LOOOVVVEE TO HEAR FROM THE ELDERLY. They are like treasure troves of KNOWLEDGE!!! So 65 dollars was rent in the 50s for a nice spacious apartment with no rodents and roaches! Today almost 3000! These jewel’s help me to put together a clearer picture of the lunacy of inflation starting in the 60s. So knowing about the prices, and salaries before, is VERY IMPORTANT. I knew of 62 a month in rent in bushwick in the mid 50s. Yada yada. THANKS FOR SUCH A GREAT VIDEO. Keep up the great content Yafala!!!🙃👁💡🎁🎈🥰
She was delightful to listen to. Thank you.
I keep watching your videos. They are very calming. They remind me of my grandparents and my childhood.
This is the nicest thing to hear. I enjoy sharing with you all.
I love this interview. Nelly is adorable, and very funny.
I adore these types of conversations. What a refreshing way to interview people! Thank you ❤
She was such a delight to listen to God bless her. I just ran across this video, I’m not sure why I wasn’t searching the older videos. Fantastic interview, thanks Frieda
I love your interview videos so much that I went back in your channel to find more.
What a lovely mother & daughter, & so fascinating.
Even though I’m not Jewish, I find WW II history & historical fiction of this time period. I also find history of religion, especially Jewish history, very interesting.
Thank you, Freida, for all you do to bring all of the stories to a larger audience.
Thank you dear. This is one of my favorite interviews so thanks for bringing me back to it. Nellys story is exceptional. She hardly touched the tip of the iceberg but if you look her up what she went through in the holocaust in losing her father is unreal.
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn - I would love to learn more about Nelly and what she went through. What would be a good source to hear more about what you just shared?
What a marvelous interview! Nelly is wonderful. 🥰
I'm so glad you watched it. I think Nelly is a real gem. Incredible personality - so very warm!
Love your interviews. I find myself in smile mode for the whole hour or however long it might be. You are so interesting because you are so interested in your guest no matter what their story. You are wonderful with your questions.
I agree! ❤️
Wow - what a women
More people need to watch and listen to people like her - amazing stories - so many survivor stories on CZcams- every kid should have e to watch !!
I love this lady! She was born in the same year as my mom and my father-in-law, what a long life.
And she sounds like Edith Bunker!!
Fascinating interview with a very smart, astute, interesting woman. I love the array of people you interview. I am always learning new things about life, my culture…Judaism, etc. Most amazing… you are always smiling and asking wonderful questions.
While adding a tidbit of your own life. Thanks again
Frieda, another fabulous interview and another beautiful person full of grace and intelligence !! I am learning so much. Thank you
I absolutely love Nelly. Thanks for watching this.
I'm listening to this while I work. It made me smile so much when you were saying Gd from Avraham...:)
Reminds me of havdallah and my son getting excited about the grape juice 😊.
As I have mentioned previous comments because I lived in the lower Eastside myself I am really fascinated by some of the history that is there. I hope you do more on the lower side including the incredible synagogue on Norfolk Street that I was a member of in the 1980s
Loved this interview!!
Fascinating. Nelly's wonderful. My grandmother was born the same year as her, and also started out in the Lower East Side (later, South Bronx). Funnily enough she was also a Friedman. I wonder if they crossed paths as children.
Thank you for these interviews. My father's grandmother was Nellie Tourtellotte Shields. Her mother was Phebe Vincent (maiden name)
French Jews but idk exactly how it goes.
Absolutely priceless, Frieda.
❤
This is one of my favorites Jim.
Yiddish is like German. I speak German and understand almost all the yiddish😊
I often give tours to German tourists with a translator from English to German and I can make out when the translator doesn't translate me correctly!
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn haha! Maybe you don’t need a translator. Just speak yiddish to them😅❤️
Thank you Frieda it was a privilege to listen to this testimony I also thought about Pearl who said she read every book on the Shoah she could get her hands on. There are things we can’t understand and The Torah says so. It is so profoundly sad but also remarkable how many souls like your guest went on to make a “normal life “ after the nightmare she survived and many others. We must not ever forget. May HaShem give her and the others the most special blessings. Thank you Frieda once again bringing us these precious testimonies. Thank You so much 🌹Bill. Uk
I,m listening to this 2 or more years later. What a lovely lady! Thank you for this interview. I heard her say that she couldn' t have her children from the U.S. visit her in Israël during that time of covid madness...how cruel was that!
This is one of my favorite interviews. Nelly is a gem of a woman. How cruel things were during Covid to elderly!
I regret that I didn't ask my paternal grandparents about life before the holocaust
Such a strong story! Im from Slovakia,the country,where the great part of holocaust was happening. I have read a lot o books written by survivors. Im always so touched by it,the strengh of the survivors and the cruelty of the soldiers. And always keep asking: how did it come to this?
Interesting name..."Gruessgott" (=greeting God") is a common greeting in Southern Germany and Austria when people, even strangers, meet during walks, hikes, or when you see an acquaintance in public. When we used to hike in the Alps (Austria and Northern Italy), everyone greeted each other with "Gruessgott" when encountering other hikers. It is not a common last name at all in Germany, at least I have never heard of it.
Never heard of Gruessgott as a greeting. But Gottlieb for instance, which is another God based name, is also very common among Jewish people. Also Gottesman. So I guess names around God are a thing.
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn Yes, it is a very common greeting in the southern regions of Germany, and in Austria, and the German-speaking area in Italy (South Tyrol)
Lovely chatty but really informative interview. Feel like you're listening in to a private conversation - excellent interviewer with gentle but probing style.
I’m trying to be more systematic in my viewing 😂! So going way back now!! I’ve seen bits of Nelly talking in other places, so it was so lovely to see this.
LOVE this video so much. So interesting to hear so much history and so many other people’s stories through Nelly telling some of her own story. I loved all of the little anecdotes and how she captures some of the spirit and personality of others through her storytelling. Also enjoyed the dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship.
Also, I’m now remembering all of my childhood jump rope (or skipping, as we call it this side of the pond 🙃) rhymes.
Good morning Rachel! Now that you reminded me of Nelly, I think I'll email her to see how she's doing. She is such a sweet spirit with such an amazing story. I wish we had discussed her war story, which is heartbreaking heartbreaking heartbreaking!
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn I have either read or listened to her talk about her war story. COMPLETELY heartbreaking. I think this was a great interview though and nice to hear some more of her story. Hopefully people will look into that part of her story too. Oh, definitely email her to check in. I hope she’s doing really well. ❤️
I just wrote her! I'm waiting to hear back... I actually tried to reinterview her a half year ago but she'd lost a lot of hearing and couldn't hear my questions. She was as sweet and peppy as ever!
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn ah good. I’m sure she’ll be really pleased to hear from you.
Oh bless her. That sounds like trying to talk with my dad over the phone 🙃🙃🙃. Though he does now wear hearing aids, so slightly better!!!…and sometimes definitely selective. My mum LOVES to talk and I think he just zones out. 🤣🤪
@@RachGHa ha you crack me up at the mental image of trying to talk to your dad over the phone.
love this !!!!!
Isn't Nelly lovely?!
This is so interesting for me. I am a bit younger. I lived in Williamsburg in 1952-1964. First on Wallabout Street, then on Ross St between Bedford and Lee. We moved to Boro Park bec we were more "modern". Now, I am a "kofer" and made aliyah!!
Wow! Haha I love the way you put your story. Good for you for living in Israel! My heart pines for living there one day.
Nelly - what a smile!
I love the interview but it is hard to follow because everyone is talking at the same time. God bless all the people who had to experience this terrible time.
Nelly is wonderful but she is hard of hearing so it was a challenge...
@@FriedaVizelBrooklyn Yes, but it was still wonderful to hear her experience. I felt a little bad for being so critical. Thank you for your great work showing your culture and the great interviews!
My heart breaks.
❤
I'd speak Yiddish with Nelly!
14:30 lee ave and hooper is viener shul, formerly lee ave. theatre. what's "model"?
Hi Jacob. Lee and Hooper is the Klausenburg Shul, it's where the Model's theatre was (sorry, my mistake, mispronounced the name)
There were two theatres - see this post. One was the Viener Shul, the other Klausenburg. friedavizel.com/2020/08/21/a-williamsburg-architecture-brush-up/
The Rebbe was NOT Condescending to woman at all. He had tremendous RESPECT FOR THEM. !
My mother was born in a LES tenement, “cold water flat.”
We said same Gut fin Avruhom
I lived on Hooper and Lee Avenue. What was Nellys mothers name?
Wow! A year old? Holy Anatoly! The best.
Joe's candy store, on hooper st and lee ave
Tell me more!
I sure wish we could oichhh machh HEAT!😋🙃❤️ Friedas middle name is Yafala…🥰
My 3rd time I can’t get enough of this episode! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE LEARNING! It’s better than going shopping for anything! If Frieda was my wife, NO SHEITELS! , I ONLY WANT MY WIFE KIDS OR PEOPLE I KNOW VERY WELL FOR A MINYAN! I prefer to daven alone. Plus I look more like a goyim the way i dress. I would literally HAVE to start my OWN sect. I respect, and love, but don’t agree with all consensus view. We’d go to limited movies, dinners, museums, art galleries, the poconos! They have a hot tub that is a giant champagne glass hot tub. Super cool. Can’t go alone, or with males, so if I ever see a movie its when I visit my kids(grown ups) in Maryland. I haven’t watched tv is 1997. I haven’t bought a newspaper in over a decade, about when I went from non religious to orthodoxish. No way can be ultra, but from ultra come THEE MOST PERFECT WOMEN ON EARTH TODAY!!! But if she’s religious obviously I’m a wrap, but if she’s more open to being with someone different but similar. Whatever. God bless ALLLLL and to alllllll a lecture Kodesh
That man was moving in on that woman who didn't even know if her husband was dead? Wow, no shame. Proof no matter what they preach they are still human like the rest of us, sad, it's really all for show to control.
Jump rope rhymes! From Queens, 1950’s, Miss Mary Mack, Teddy bear Teddy bear, A my name is Anna, my husband’s name is Al, We live in Allentown and we sell apples!, We played jacks, hopscotch, stoop ball, Chinese jump rope, My mother said,
thank you for the trip down memory lane!
They shaved their heads like what was done in the concentration camps?
They didn't shave their heads because of the concentration camps...the rabbi instructed the women to do so for religious purposes.
@L porquai I find all extremist religions All about control and patriarchy I'm Jewish and I would never let anyone tell me how to live my life
@@michelleshore1372 agreed , I was brought up catholic and I hated the rules and being told how to act, feel, the confessions, the feeling guilty I hated it
@@lporquai9048 exactly! I used to be catholic,but I started to rebel at the age of puberty and now I try to be as tolerant as possible. To live and let live.
Strange bitter old woman.
How can you watch this video with such a wonderful woman so full of life and love and come away calling her "strange bitter old woman"? I know Nelly and she's just a sweetheart who is so full of joy and life, dancing, reading, talking to everyone with such warmth, love for life. Just a gem of a person.
It was disgusting what they did to the kids of New York and every other democrat run state - my governor didn’t shut down schools
What was more disgusting is Red States allowing people to walk around with military weapons like Texas and Florida with no required screenings.
and now Idaho voted to abolish Covid vaccines from their state They are are anti science