Libby Uzycki Ferber Elson from Bielsk Podlaski

Biography of Libby Elson
(Libby Uzycki Ferber Elson)

by Norton Elson, her son

The following is based on memories of her stories and a sixty-page transcript of an interview by Roberta Benor in 2000 with Libby about her life.

Libby Uzycki Ferber Elson was born May 25, 1911, in the town of Bielsk Podlaski, Poland. She was the 6th daughter of a farming family residing at Mickiewicza 73. Her original family name was Uzycki, eventually Americanized to Ferber (“dyer of wool”). She recalled her family as being “middle class” in that they were sufficiently prosperous to share food with neighboring families, but all 8 lived in a small 2-bedroom house about a mile from the land they farmed.

Click the photo to see postcards from home.

Click the map for more details.

As a child she attended the local Yiddish primary school (“Folk-shule”) and a Hebrew school (“cheder”). As an adolescent she lived with her older sister in the nearby town of Brest Litovsk to attend Polish high school (“Gymnasia”). Her schooling was initially in Yiddish, then in Russian and Polish.

Union of Jewish Schools Membership Card, 1939. Click the image for full details.

After graduation she moved back home to work on the family farm. She had fond memories of playing sports, hiking, swimming in the River Luvka, camping in the forest with friends, dancing on Saturday nights, and going to the movies. However, she avoided romantic relationships because she didn’t want to remain in Poland; she wanted to escape to anyplace else. “I hated them with all my guts.” (Three of the six sisters had already emigrated to the US.)

General Trade Union of Commercial and Office Workers in Poland. Click the image for full details.

Movie nights ended after Kristallnacht on November 9-10th, 1938. The latent hostility of their Polish neighbors escalated, and going out at night became too dangerous. Jewish merchants were boycotted, and Jews were beaten on the street. Her opportunity to escape soon came from a neighbor’s son, Charley Elson. Charley returned to Bielsk from Detroit in early 1939 to retrieve his elderly widowed father. His father refused to leave, so Libby convinced Charley to have the visa reissued in her name. The effort took months of legal work (and significant expense) but she finally got her visa. She booked passage in steerage for the August 11, 1939 sailing of the MS Pilsudski from the port of Gdansk to New York City. [The ship, dubbed “The Polish Titanic”, was sunk 3 months later during its first military voyage of the war.] Her parents were very upset at her imminent departure. They implored her to stay a few weeks longer so she could spend High Holidays with them one last time, then travel to the US in the care of an older cousin and her children on the MS Batory [sister ship of the Pilsudski]. Libby refused and left alone. The German invasion of Poland began on September 1. Her cousin (and her 4 children) did not survive. Her mother’s last words to her [in Yiddish] were, “Will you miss us?” She arrived in New York City on August 21, 1939. Libby never saw her family again.

Polish passport of Libe Utzyski. Click the image for full details.

She was met in New York City by her cousin, George Ferber (whose name she adopted), her sister Minnie and brother-in-law Barney. She initially lived with her sister in Brooklyn. She tried (unsuccessfully) to work as a seamstress in a garment factory, then found work in a pencil factory (loading lead into mechanical pencils for $12.75/week.) She went to night school to learn English and citizenship [Walter Reed High School in Manhattan] and did her homework on the subway.

She was introduced to her husband, Herman Elson, by her sister Minnie. [Both their families came from Bielsk and were related; Herman was her second cousin.] He was 9 years older, owned a business [glazier] and was financially stable. Though a bachelor, he rented a large apartment in Brooklyn to accommodate his elderly parents, two sisters and their families. Libby was struck by the gentle and loving care Herman gave to his aged parents, and decided he was the right man for her. Herman soon asked her to marry, but Libby wanted to travel to California first to see her other 2 sisters, Anna (Channah) and Lena (Leche), whom she hadn’t seen in 16 years. [An eighty-hour train journey!] She remained with them for 6 months before returning to New York City to marry Herman on December 8, 1940. They had a tiny wedding with only Herman’s mother (who was very close to Libby) in attendance. They moved to an apartment in the Bronx, close to his widowed mother’s home.

Libby received letters from her parents until 1942. She later learned from a survivor that her family was deported to Auschwitz. Her father was shot en route because he couldn’t keep up. The remainder of her family perished at the camp.

Herman’s business thrived, specializing in large plate glass windows for Manhattan department stores. Libby spent her time reading books in Polish and Russian. She initially had difficulty having a child, but finally succeeded after a medical procedure performed by one of the pioneers in the field. She named her first child Norton, after her father-in-law Natan. Her second child arrived 2 years later, named Clifford (Chaim, after her mother Chaya.) [She wanted his English name to be Charley to honor the cousin who saved her, but Herman objected. “Charley is the name of a horse!”, he said.]

The family remained in the 1-bedroom Bronx apartment, remodeling it to accommodate the two boys. At first, they spent summers at a Catskill bungalow colony, with Herman commuting on the weekends. When the boys were older, they took long car trips around the country. Libby never tired of the beauty of the US, coast to coast. The boys grew, married and moved away; Cliff raised his family in Schenectady NY, Norton in Bethesda, Maryland.

Libby and Herman were active in the United Bielsker Relief, which aided immigrants from Bielsk in the US and supported philanthropy in Israel. Libby supported the Bielsk Yizkor book by writing chapters and submitting photos. She is also mentioned in chapters written by others. After Herman’s retirement, they traveled the world and volunteered at The Bronx House (their local senior center.) They stayed in their Bronx apartment until Herman’s death in 1993 (at almost 91 years old.) Libby then moved to a residential senior center in Rockville, Maryland (near Norton and adjacent to the Jewish Community Center.) In her last decade she read voraciously (in 5 languages), wrote stories, sang with the JCC chorus, swam in the JCC pool and watched her grandchildren grow. She had the distinction of being one of the few members of her community who could claim Yiddish as their mama loshen (mother tongue.) She passed away peacefully in 2004 at almost 93. She was interred at Mt Lebanon Cemetery in Glendale, New York next to her beloved Herman. Z”L

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