Paying It Forward
Felice Zimmern Stokes of Teaneck, New Jersey, first learned about JDC’s global endeavors through her work at the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, an organization whose members include JDC. But it was only later that she discovered her own personal connection to the Joint.
Born in Wallduern, Germany, Felice was barely 1 year old when the Nazis deported the town’s entire Jewish population to an internment camp in southern France. In a desperate bid to save their children, her parents allowed representatives of OSE to spirit Felice and her older sister, Beate, out of the camp. During and immediately after the Holocaust, the Joint supported humanitarian organizations like OSE, which literally snatched Jewish children from the jaws of the Nazis, hiding them first in children’s homes and later among French families in the countryside, and then sheltering them in orphanages in the postwar period.
Two decades later, Felice discovered that her parents were subsequently deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. By then, she and her sister had spent two years at an OSE nursery in Limoges; when that venue became too dangerous, Felice was hidden in a French family’s home and was reunited there with Beate in the final months of the war.
In 1946, OSE moved the girls to a succession of children’s homes established with financial and professional support from the Joint, which helped arrange their immigration to the U.S. in 1951. Felice speaks of her years in a Taverny orphanage with special fondness, recalling the devotion of its staff and their dedication to helping the children reclaim a Jewish identity that most had never known.
Felice was delighted to find pictures of herself and Beate, as well as the Taverny staff, when she visited the JDC Archives, and she knows that helping to restore and strengthen Jewish life, especially in the post-Communist nations, remains a key aspect of the Joint’s work.
Just as the Joint was there for her and her sister decades ago, Felice believes it must continue to be there for Jews in need now and into the future. That’s why she has made a generous gift in her will to JDC, and why she is urging others to consider a legacy gift to “this very caring organization that has done such wonderful work—and is still doing it today.”
You, too, can ensure that JDC is there for future generations, saving lives and strengthening communities as it has done for more than 100 years. Contact David Golaner at 917.391.3308 or davidgo@jdc.org to explore your options.