Gitla Doppelt, a Holocaust survivor who fought with the Partisans against the Nazis, celebrated her 99th birthday last month. She stands as a testament to resilience and longevity, a woman who has always soldiered on.
When she tells her story, she always tells of the heroism of her brother, Israel Slonimski, who actively fought with the guerilla Partisan forces. But Doppelt herself has lived a life worthy of retelling. The Slonimski family consisted of Samuel and Frieda, the parents of Gitla, her brothers, Chiya and Israel, and her sister, Sima. They lived in Byten, now in Belarus, as it was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939 and then invaded by the Nazis in 1941.
The Nazis established a ghetto in Byten, and in August 1942, massacred more than 1,800 Jews in a ravine. The Slonimskis escaped this, but just barely.
“We woke up and it was terrible,” Doppelt said. “People were running. We didn’t know what’s going on. Then we find out that they already were in the ghetto, and they were going to come and kill the people. Everybody was running and looking for hiding places.”
A few families and the Slonimskis hid in a house, and her mother took her and her sister into the basement.
“They were different basements than ones [in America],” Doppelt said. “We used them for storage in the wintertime, for potatoes and carrots and things. [My mother] told me not to scream.”
“The Germans came and they took the people from the house… they took them to the gate, to a truck, and from the truck they took them to the forest with a grave ready. They undressed them, and they killed them.”
Her brother Israel, however, jumped from the truck, was sheltered by a nearby farmer and joined the Partisans. He sent the farmer to the Byten ghetto with a note asking the rest of his family to join him in the forest under cover of the night.
At this time, the rest of the Slonimskis were reunited in a disused synagogue, with Gitla and her sister leaving the basement to join about 25 other Jews hiding. When they received Israel’s message, their father was ready to join him in the forest, but her mother was hesitant.
“My mother said, ‘I’m not going. How can we survive in the forest? We’d die there anyway in the forest,’” Doppelt said. “But my father said, ‘No way I’m going to let them kill us like animals in here.’”
The family escaped and reunited with Israel. Mostly through bartering, the family and other Partisans got ammunition, food and clothing.
“We made a little cabin, and we covered it in straw,” Doppelt said. “We were happy because we had food and everything.”
Gitla, then 16, worked to cook food for the Partisan soldiers.
“I couldn’t go [fight], so I was working in the kitchen,” she said. She worked to the point where her fingers became infected.
Russian partisans began moving to the region of Pinsk, where Nazi trucks and tanks could not traverse the muddy terrain. Gitla’s brother Chiya was killed in action when trying to communicate with a different partisan group, and she and her brother Israel were separated from her parents and younger sister.
The family reunited shortly in Byten after the Russian liberation in 1944, but they knew they couldn’t stay.
“We came back to our house, but we couldn’t live there anymore because the whole town was murdered,” Doppelt said. “...My father was crying. He said, ‘I built my house with my own hand. We have to live, but we cannot live here anymore.’”
The Slonimskis stayed on military bases because the war wasn’t yet over. Israel was enlisted to continue fighting, but later reunited again with the family. After the war, everyone had to restart their lives. Israel, who was also a talented tailor, went to Canada, where they wanted specialists. Sima left for what is now Israel. Gitla ended up in a displaced persons camp in Italy, eventually followed by her parents.
“When I came to Italy, I said, ‘Oh my gosh,’” she said. “I was 17 years old, like I was born again. It was so beautiful. There were already lots of Jewish people… They used to bring entertainment for the young people.”
She started studying to be a seamstress, and she met and married a fellow survivor, Felix Doppelt, a professional soccer player. They had their first child, a daughter, while in Italy.
Knowing that she couldn’t stay in the DP camp forever, she, her parents, her husband and her newborn baby signed up to go to Israel in 1950. Her parents went and reunited with Sima, but they sent word back to the Doppelts that they should not come to Israel because there was still fighting and unrest there.
The Doppelts decided to move to Kansas City, where she had relatives. There they encountered new struggles.
“My relatives, they were not rich. They couldn’t help us,” she said, “so at the first apartment we took we had no furniture, no things, nothing. Here we came from Italy with a beautiful life, and here we have no help.”
Unable to secure aid from local Jewish organizations, she had to take her baby to the Salvation Army for care. She took a job sewing, but had to stop when her baby developed the mumps and then the measles.
Things began looking up for the Doppelts when her uncle was able to help them by signing a loan for them for a big house, where they earned money by renting out the rooms.
“The house was full of young people,” she said. “They used to come watch television, and I was happy. I used to sew dresses for the kids and cook and everything. The only thing I had to do was change the [sheets].”
Meanwhile, Felix decided that he couldn’t continue his soccer career here in case he got hurt and could no longer earn money. He began working at the New York Bakery, where the owner liked him so much that he was able to bring home food for the family, which by 1952 included a new baby, Cela.
“My husband was a very smart man,” Doppelt said. “He said when you make $1, you have to put 20 cents away for a rainy day. He was so smart… he saved up $2,000, and on this, we made good.”
Doppelt got a job on The Paseo, and the family lived a steady life in Kansas City for decades, proud of their children and making a decent living. But her steady life was once again derailed when Felix was diagnosed with cancer.
“My husband told me how to take care, how to pay the bills, because he knew he was dying,” she said. “He taught me everything, so I learned how to take care of the house.”
After her husband died in 1991, Doppelt began to move to California to be nearer to her daughter. She even began the process of selling her house, but changed her mind last-minute and decided to stay in Kansas City. She was able to keep her house after the real estate deal fell through.
She took some part-time work and would visit her daughters in San Francisco and Denver, eventually enjoying time with grandchildren. But at age 90, hardship struck again.
“I managed very well, but one Saturday, there was a big storm, and a tree fell down on my house, and that was the end,” she said.
The damage to her home began another difficult transition. Social services said that it was no longer safe for her to live alone, forcing her to leave the house she had maintained for decades and move into a retirement home.
“I was so disgusted. I couldn’t sleep. I said, ‘What happened to me? I lost everything, and I cannot help myself,’” she said.
But, as she’s done her whole life, she continues forward. She gets her exercise by walking to and from her room to the elevator to go downstairs. She eats vegetarian because the retirement home’s meat is not kosher. At age 99, she still changes her own sheets and keeps her apartment clean.
Gitla Doppelt, pictured on Aug. 14, shortly before her 99th birthday, with flowers from the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.
Despite the circumstances Doppelt finds herself in, she maintains a strong spirit and acknowledges that at 99, not everything is bad.
“The only thing I can tell you,” she said, “is when I get up every day and I’m alive, I say, ‘I’m a lucky person.’”
