Paula Jackson
"You just can't be scared. You just have to keep going."
Name at birth
Paula Pessa Massa Ingberg
Date of birth
08/21/1918
Where did you grow up?
Minden, Germany
Name of father, occupation
Hirsch Wolf Ingberg,
Owner, clothing store
Maiden name of mother, occupation
Sosse Charlotte Klepfisz,
Homemaker
Immediate family (names, birth order)
Thirteen all together: Parents, children and half children. Seven children from my father's first marriage; four from his second marriage. My father's first wife died of cancer'
How many in entire extended family?
40
Who survived the Holocaust?
Me, my brothers, Max and Adolph; sisters, Marta and Frieda; one niece Lotti in Palestine; and three nephews, Max, Eliyahu and Isadore.
My father and his first wife came from Poland to Germany with their seven children for a better life. His first wife died in 1917 and he went back to Warsaw to find another wife with whom he had four more children. In 1936, 1937 some of my family immigrated to Palestine, two of my half sisters married two Brazilians who were originally from Poland and had gone to Brazil.
I was working for a German family in Hanover, Germany as a nanny. When the Nazis came for us in Hanover, I hid in a bathroom. I took a train to Minden to be with my family, but found that they had been rounded up. The house had been looted, windows broken. Neighbors saw me and called the police. I got on the roof, and tried to escape. I was eventually captured and put in jail.
The local rabbi was able to get me a document that said I had seven days to leave Germany. My mother had been able to get me a permit to leave for England as a domestic. I went to the British Consulate with this document. They help me flee to England in July, 1939. I left for Putney, England, never to see my family again. My family wound up in the Warsaw Ghetto from which they perished.
During the war, in Oundle, England, I met an American GI, Kenneth Robert Jackson from Grayling, Michigan. I had no family left in Minden. I married and moved to Grayling with my new husband.
Spouse
Kenneth Robert Jackson
Children
David, car sales Robert, professor at NYU, Rosemary, State of Michigan Elizabeth, performing arts teacher and director
Grandchildren
Six and six great-grandchildren
What do you think helped you to survive?
I don’t know, so much happened. I was scared in hiding. Maybe I wanted to survive. I remember being on top of a toilet hiding from the Nazis. I guess G-d wanted me to survive. I guess it wasn’t my time to go.
What message would you like to leave for future generations?
You just can't be scared. You just have to keep going.
Interviewer:
Charles Silow
Interview date:
10/15/2005
Experiences
Survivor's map
