A 

loving mother feels grateful her 
children and grandchildren grow 
up in comfort, but, at some point, 
she wants them to know what she learned 
in her own childhood. So, Gita Zikherman-
Greisdorf wrote The Shattered 
Dreams, a slim memoir telling 
her story simply and directly. 
She wrote this book to con-
vey the values that sustained 
her parents as they managed 
to save their children from 
the Nazis, remaining always 
just a step ahead of disaster. 
Inevitably, the book also conveys the 
author’
s own personality. Dr. Charles Silow, 
who works with survivors, such as Gita, 
who serve as speakers at the Holocaust 
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, 
describes the author as “honest, sincere 
and sweet.”
The story starts in Daugavpils, Latvia, 
where Gita enjoyed a happy childhood in 
the same neighborhood as her grandpar-
ents, aunts, uncles and many cousins with 
Jewish and Latvian playmates. Gita, the little 
girl with a mop of golden curls, was a piano 
prodigy. At the ripe age of 9, she won accep-
tance to the music conservancy. She never 

got to attend. 
The Nazis marched into Latvia June 22, 
1941. Those Jews who could ran to the train 
yards to try to go east toward relative safety. 
Gita’
s father got his wife and children on a 
crowded train, but it had no driver. He ran 
through the trainyard and found a driver, 
who refused to help them. Her father then 
found a soldier, who threatened the driver. 
So, a trainload of Jews escaped. Those who 
stayed in Daugavpils were murdered by the 
Germans. Gita’
s grandparents were among 
those who stayed. 
Looking back at that incident, Gita now 
realizes that her father was a hero. He saved 
the lives of a trainload of refugees.
When the family reached the Soviet 
Union, along with tens of thousands of 
other refugees, they could not stay in 
overcrowded urban areas. At a kolkhoz, a 
collective farm in a rural Russian village, 
the Zikherman family lived with people 
who had heard legends about Jews but 
had never seen one. Villagers literally 
checked these newcomers for horns. 
Once the villagers realized that Jews are 
just human beings, the good-hearted 
peasants even shared what little they had 
to help the family survive.

Gita’
s ever-resourceful father, trained as 
a tailor, took up whatever trade or craft 
he needed to provide for the family and 
to share with the neighbors. When he 
was mobilized, her fragile mother needed 
12-year-old Gita to take charge. 
Even in their extreme poverty, when 
Gita’
s mother had enough supplies (flour, 
bran and potato peels) to bake bread, she 
instructed Gita to carry some to more 
needy neighbors.
The story continues as the family moved 
from place to place across Russia, as they 
linked up with surviving cousins, as they 
faced life-threatening dangers and still 
managed to enjoy life. 
After the war, the Russians put Gita’
s 
father in charge of a tailoring shop. Three 
German prisoners-of-war worked for him. 
The Russians had little sympathy for these 
defeated soldiers and did not give them 
enough to eat. Gita’
s mother made sand-
wiches for her husband and extra sand-
wiches for the prisoners. 
Gita did not ever become a concern 
pianist — she still feels sad about that and 
cries at concerts. She became a teacher of 
Russian language and literature. She mar-
ried Gary Greisdorf in Russia, and they 
have two children and four grandchildren. 
The family moved to the Detroit area in 
1972.
Summarizing her life story, the author 
wants non-Jews to see what it means to hate 
and to ask themselves the tragic question: 
“How can a person come to such hatred?” 
She wants Jews to feel proud of our peo-
ple, even when we have disagreements and 
to remain united. 
Without hiding from the horror, her 
Holocaust story is both sweet and honest. 

COURTESY OF GITA ZIKHERMAN-GREISDORF 

Gita 
Zikherman-
Greisdorf

16 | JANUARY 02 • 2019 

The Shattered 
Dreams

Author shares lessons learned 
from her childhood. 

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Jews in the D

LEFT: Gita at age 4, held by her mother’
s cousin 
Rachel Brez, in 1935. RIGHT: At the wedding of 
her aunt. Gita is the girl in the white dress. To the 
right are Dora and Gita’
s grandparents, Avraham 
and Barkin, who were murdered in the Holocaust.

