Edith Lucas Pagelson, family matriarch, Holocaust survivor, public speaker, and educator died on October 7 at the age of 97.
Edith was born in Worms, Germany in 1926. Her earliest years were spent swimming in the Rhine, helping in the family’s hardware store in Worms, and excelling in her school studies. Her family was active in Worms’ one-thousand-year-old Jewish community, and Edith sang in the choir of the famous Rashi synagogue. Her neighbors and friends were comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and she recalled the time when there had been no distinction, when friends were simply friends, and neighbors joyfully visited neighbors.
All this ended on Kristallnacht, “The Night of Shattered Glass,” November 10th , 1938 when Edith was twelve.
Amid the wreckage of the family store and the swirl of feathers from her parent’s torn mattress tossed from their apartment onto the street, Edith began a journey that led from the Theresienstadt ghetto to the concentration camps of Birkenau and Auschwitz to the labor camps of Stuthoff and the Russian front. She witnessed the farce of normalcy the Nazis contrived to deceive the International Red Cross at Theresienstadt. In Auschwitz, she came face-to-face with Dr. Josef Mengele, and miraculously survived being sent to the gas chamber.
Edith viewed life as a series of miracles, from a simple lemon in her father’s pocket that revitalized her after a forced march, to never being separated from her mother Flora throughout their hellish odyssey across much of Nazi-controlled eastern Europe; from meeting a childhood friend, Henry Lucas, among the thousands crowded together in the camps to then being found by him again after the war and later marrying him. Henry, Edith, and Flora emigrated to America in 1947. They were reunited with Suse, Edith’s sister, whom they had not seen in 8 years. Suse was sent on a Kindertransport to England prior to the war at age 8.
While their American relatives and neighbors told them to forget the past, Edith knew she would not and should not, even as she and Henry focused on building a new future. Settling in Brooklyn, Edith and Henry raised two children, Jerry and Ruth, and operated a dry-cleaning business with Edith’s mother Flora. They enjoyed house-boating up the Hudson River to Lake Champlain, water skiing, and snow skiing. Sadly, Henry died in a chairlift accident in 1973.
In 1975, Edith married Arthur Pagelson who had escaped Germany as a young man and served in the U.S. Army during WWII. Edith and Arthur enjoyed many happy years together in Somers, NY as well as winters in San Diego, CA, sharing their love for tennis and opera. When Arthur passed away in 2004, Edith moved to Ocean View in Falmouth, Maine to be close to her daughter Ruth and family.
Edith was often asked to share her life story. She spoke at schools, churches, synagogues, community groups, and businesses in New York, California, and Maine for many decades up to the year of her passing. Edith said, “I do so with great humility, honor, and pleasure; and I sincerely hope that my tale of persecution, horror, resilience, survival, rebirth, and transition will serve to educate both young and old alike. There is no greater gift that I could give, particularly to the innocent and inquisitive minds of middle and high school children who are still in the process of forming their attitudes and beliefs about ethical behavior and tolerance.”
In 2012, Edith recorded her story in a memoir, Against All Odds: A Miracle of Holocaust Survival, that remains in print, and all proceeds benefit the Maine Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine.
Edith is survived by her children, Jerry Lucas (Lucile) and Ruth (Dr. Robert), and her grandchildren Hannah Finegold and Jacob Lucas; and by Arthur’s children Glen Pagelson (Eva), Candy Susnow, and Jeffrey Pagelson (Renee), and grandchildren Ilana, Matthew, Brittany, Ayalea, Thea, Yarden, Craig and Stephanie, and five great-grandchildren. Edith was the “shamus” to so many – the candle used to light all the other Chanukah candles, demonstrating through her deeds, her unquenchable love, and her perspective of life’s cup always being half-full, that one can give light to others without ever diminishing one’s own.
Special thanks to her dear friend and caregiver Therese and the excellent staff at Falmouth House and Compassus.
For shiva details please email – pagelsonshiva@gmail.com
Donations can be made to:
Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine
46 University Drive
Augusta, ME 04330
Website with direct Donation Link: https://www.hhrcmaine.org/donate