SONIA PAULINE BEKER AUTHOR / EDUCATOR
INTERVIEW BY HARRYET
Sonia, tell me about your life. Sonia Pauline Beker: I’m was an only child of my sweet, Holocaust parents who created a warm, solid home in America for their little family. I always felt a bit disconnected from other kids, as my public schoolmates came from American parents who were more confident, outspoken and self-assured than my parents, who were somewhat more deferential, modest and quiet. I grew up in East New York, Brooklyn. Then, when I was 11, we moved to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. During the summers, we initially went to Rockaway Beach where we stayed in a boarding house with other Jewish immigrant families. My mom and I went to the beach everyday and I made friends with the other kids nearby. Then, we also spent summers in the Catskills with my aunt, uncle and cousins in bungalow colonies in Swan Lake. Those were exciting days for us young kids. We were free to roam the grounds of the bungalow colony and play games all day until our moms called us in for lunch and dinner. Our dads were away on weekdays and returned on Fridays for the weekend! It was so exciting for us when we saw our
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY TASJA KEETMAN
dads again!! Often, they brought us small gifts and toys that we shared with our friends. On Saturday nights, our parents dressed up and drove to the nearby hotels (Concord, Stevensville) to go to the nightclubs for variety and comedy shows. When I got older, I went with my friends! Loved them!! We’d do our hair, tease it up and hairspray it against the mountain humidity. Then, we’d cover it with kerchiefs because we didn’t want bats to fly into our hair!! There was such a feeling of abundance, laughter and sharing! Truly miss those days!! It was a place of healing, I think, for the survivors. On weekends, they swam and played cards or mah jongg during the day, bingo in the main house in the evening, and just relaxed. Then there were those excellent comedy shows on Saturday nights. I think they slowly restored their spirits in this Catskills culture. As I grew up and went to high school, I became friends with a couple of girls with literary interests. We wrote for the school literary magazine and newspaper. We got together on weekends and went to see foreign films in Manhattan. My best and favorite subject was
14 • DECEMBER / JANUARY 2019 THE ARTFUL MIND
English, which I continued to major in at SUNY Buffalo. I Went to England for my junior year, then stayed later to audit courses while I became the au pair for the university’s chancellor. Then, returned to SUNY Buffalo, graduated, went back to England to do a Master’s in English and American Lit., then returned to NY, worked in book publishing for a while, went back to school in Vermont to get a Master’s in Teaching English as a Second Language. Got my first job in Boston, then went to teach in Japan for 4 ½ years. Came back and entered the NYC school system as a high school teacher of ESL. Also taught some summers and evenings at Hunter College and the School of Visual Arts. Became more Jewishly observant through a modern orthodox synagogue on the upper west side, then Chabad. Just retired in 2014, which is also when I married Steve Zucker. It’s been a wonderful journey, and I look forward to more. You have written a book, Symphony on Fire: A Story of Music and Spiritual Resistance During the Holocaust. Tell us about why you wrote this book?