Hilde Beretz Smissman, Golden Care Donor, Turns 100
Hilde Beretz Smissman has seen a lot in her 100 years of life. She was born in Cologne, Germany on September 9, 1920. Her parents owned a small business. They took part in Jewish life, attending synagogue almost every Saturday. “Our city was a friendly mix of Jews, Catholics and Protestants,” Hilde recounts. “It was customary for all of us to go to Christmas mass together, regardless of our faith.”
That all changed two days after Kristallnacht on November 11, 1938. Hilde and her mother quickly left the city and were on the run until the end of World War II. Her father had left for South America in 1936 in the hopes of making a better life for his family. Hilde learned later that he had passed away in Bolivia in 1942 from a deadly disease.
“My mother and I were smuggled out of Germany into Belgium by farmers, hidden in large sacks,” shares Hilde. “From there it was a non-stop race, always trying to stay one step ahead of the Nazis. In Belgium, my mother and I were separated, but I kept running from Belgium to Holland to Germany to France and back to Belgium. Once I was smuggling cheese and hopped on a train car to escape the Nazis.” That happened to be the late actor Maurice Chevalier’s private car. According to Hilde, Maurice was very nice and let her stay there until they reached France. The Nazis never searched his car.
“You had to have guts to live that kind of life alone, looking for ways to earn money on the black market to live. I thought I would never see my mother again and assumed she was dead. Only later did I happily discover that she was saved by the French Underground and we were reunited through the Red Cross,” remembers Hilde.
In 1948, Hilde arrived in New York as a refugee from Germany on a US Liberty ship with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an overseas partner agency of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. She settled in Chicago and married her husband, Earl, in 1952 and later moved to Miami.
Hilde’s life has been guided by a quote attributed to the late boxer Muhammad Ali, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” Longtime friend and Golden Care Co-Chair Paul Kruss agrees. “Hilde is an ardent Zionist and has dedicated her life to help her community, the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” Locally, Hilde put in over 1,500 volunteer hours at both Douglas Gardens (now Miami Jewish Health) in the Department of Psychiatry, as well as at Mount Sinai Medical Center. “Hilde has a love of needlepoint and made hundreds of dolls, kippot and pillows, which she graciously donated to children in need,” adds Marian Kruss, Paul’s wife. “She also has the mind of a steel trap and continues to read the newspaper from cover to cover, always keeping up to date on current events.”
Hilde has also been involved with Federation overseas partner ORT Israel for many years and for the past 15 years has supported the Greater Miami Jewish Federation/UJA Annual Campaign. When her husband passed away, she updated her will and included those organizations that she was most involved with as charitable beneficiaries, including the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. Her legacy commitment also made her eligible for Golden Care.
Although the pandemic has kept Hilde at home for the past seven months, Golden Care professionals Mindy Tucker and Miriam Masia have ensured she is never alone. They have continued to check in with her on a daily basis and celebrated her 100th birthday, albeit with masks and maintaining social distance.
“I’ve seen and experienced a lot over the past 100 years,” says Hilde. Despite the crazy world we live in, we still must do what we can to make it better. I take comfort knowing my legacy gift will continue to do good far into the future.”
