By Chuck Martin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Nearly a lifetime ago, the women may never have believed they would see such a beautiful day again. During World War II, they were persecuted as Jews and interned in concentration camps. But they came out of the darkness to survive the Holocaust, and to live in Cincinnati.

Zell Schulman (left) demonstrates an easy way to melt chocolate for Hanna Lewin, Trudy Coppel and Dina Bure. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

To raise children, to cook and bake.

On this bright, blooming day, the women - Trudy Coppel, Hanna Lewin and Dina Bure - sit at a table set with eggs, butter and empty bowls in Zell Schulman's kitchen in Amberley Village. They have been friends for nearly half a century. Like family.

They wear dressy sandals and comfortable walking shoes, sweat pants and smart sweaters. The women describe themselves as "70-something," and titter about it.

They have gathered on this Monday morning to bake cakes for a lecture Thursday, part of Holocaust Awareness Weeks 2003. That afternoon, New York editor Cara De Silva will lead a discussion on her book, In Memory's Kitchen (Aronson; $25), at the University of Cincinnati's Max Kade German Cultural Center. Published in 1996, the book is a haunting collection of recipes compiled by women prisoners of a Nazi concentration camp called Terezin, near Prague. The women wrote the recipes - for their favorite strudels, dumplings and kuchen - from memory.

Hanna Lewin (top left), Trudy Coppel and Roma Kaltman as younger women. | ZOOM |

Using recipes from the book, the Cincinnati women will bake cakes to be served at a reception following De Silva's lecture. Although none of the women was interned in Terezin, these Holocaust survivors will prepare food from recipes scribbled by starving women in that camp more than 60 years ago. Women who could have been their mothers.

They are ready. The women believe this is their best contribution to the cause. Baking and feeding people is their way of ensuring no one forgets the horrors. Others, they say, are better at public speaking.

They rarely use the word "Holocaust." They call it "the war." The women don't share details of their torture easily, even sitting at a kitchen table with friends.

"It took us many years to be able to talk about it," says Lewin, whose mother and other family members died at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Her story is different from her friends, but they all suffer the nightmares. They can't talk about the nightmares.

Schulman, a cookbook author and former food columnist for the American Israelite who is in charge of this baking operation, flits about the kitchen in an apron stitched with butterflies. Today, the women will prepare two cakes: Mina Pachter's Cake, a dense blend of ground hazelnuts and chocolate, and the crunchy Poppy Seed Slices, flavored with fresh lemon. Schulman encourages Lewin and Bure to cut butter and grease pans, while Coppel stands at the counter mixing dough.

IF YOU GO

• What: Discussion of In Memory's Kitchen by the author, Cara De Silva. • When: 4 p.m. Thursday. Where: Max Kade German Cultural Center (736 Old Chemistry Building) at the University of Cincinnati. Park in Langsam Library Garage, Campus Drive and Martin Luther King Boulevard. Go to fourth floor and look for signs to Old Chemistry Building. • Information: 556-2752. • Miscellaneous: De Silva will sign copies of her book 11:30 a.m. Friday at Borders, 11711 Princeton Road, Springdale; 671-5852.

The women struggle with failing eyesight, ailing backs and stiff hands.

Hands that bravely clenched others while standing in line in prison camps. Hands that reached out for morsels of food.

They remember hunger, but have difficulty describing it.

"We always thought about food," says Lewin, while cutting butter into a bowl. "We were always hungry."

"Potato peel soup!" Bure nearly shouts. "We ate potato peel soup!"

"The soup was nothing but water," Coppel says, shaking her head. "My husband told me that."

Coppel's husband, Werner, survived internment in Auschwitz. Trudy grew up in Germany. The other Holocaust survivors in the kitchen were born in Poland.

Favorite pre-war foods

The women recall the favorite dishes of their childhood, before the war began. Bure loved her mother's chicken soup and cucumber salad, tart with a little vinegar or lemon juice, and sometimes onions.

"My mother made this cheesecake using mashed potatoes," Bure says excitedly. "It was delicious! I still don't know how she did that."

Lewin's eyes brighten as she talks about her mother's cholent, a one-dish meal of beans, potatoes, barley and beef brisket, usually served on the Sabbath. Her mother prepared the cholent on Friday, and took it to the village baker on Saturday. The food was still hot when it came home from the baker, she remembers.

"I still make the cholent for the holidays," Lewin says. "Like my mother's."

But unlike the women of Terezin, the younger Lewin didn't allow herself to dwell on the cholent or other food as a prisoner. She didn't write down recipes from memory.

"I didn't think about it during the war," Lewin says. "I thought about survival."

"People ate to try to survive, to maybe see their families again," Bure says from across the table.

"For some it worked out well," says Lewin. "For others, it didn't."

An hour after the women begin baking, another friend and Holocaust survivor, Roma Kaltman arrives. A doctor's appointment made her late.

Dina Bure, Zell Schulman and Roma Kaltman work on a poppy seed cake. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

"Sitting here, you have three terrific bakers," Kaltman says, pointing at them and smiling.

She reads the recipe for Poppy Seed Slices slowly aloud, as the other women continue to work, separating eggs, cutting parchment paper and smearing pans with soft butter.

"Add the egg yolks, one at a time," Kaltman shouts, making sure she is heard above the groaning mixer and chatter.

Schulman stops to tease Coppel about spending too much time cleaning batter from the mixer bowl.

"We learned to clean our plates," Lewin says.

"There was no other way," Coppel adds.

After eating potato peel soup to stay alive, the women find it difficult, sinful, to waste a drop of cake batter.

Schulman coaxes the women up from their chairs to show them how she easily melts chocolate in the microwave, and how she whips egg whites to the proper point of stiffness.

The women nod with interest.

'This is important'

They sit at the table again and decide to meet at Schulman's house Thursday afternoon, to take their sweet cakes to the author's lecture. There's one poppy seed cake left in the oven, but Schulman promises to pull it out later.

The kitchen smells wonderful, like toasting nuts and chocolate, with a hint of lemon. Their work complete, the women are satisfied.

"This is important," Lewin says. "The memories. Even though it is difficult to talk about, it's important."

The women leave, agreeing to meet somewhere for a late lunch. To brag about their children and grandchildren, and to eat together.

On such a beautiful day, they may have never believed.

E-mail cmartin@enquirer.com

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