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Elisabeth Bruck
Elisabeth was born June 28th 1909 in Breslau, the middle one of three girls. Erika one year older and Trudy 4 years younger. Her father died while serving in the German army during world war one. She studied languages and history at university and after marriage to Kurt Steinitz May 9th 1934 went with him to Turkey, and afterwards to what was then Palestine. Their oldest daughter Irene Rachel was born in Turkey in 1936 and their younger daughter Ilana was born in Palestine in 1946.
In Haifa they lived in a three room apartment with another family and had very little money. The first apartment that was offered by an agent was a shopwindow room, but this did not appeal to them. While standing in a queue for several hours in Jerusalem to board a bus to Haifa, she met a Mr. Blaustein who offered her a part of his apartment in downtown Haifa, the Arab part of the city. The two families shared the small apartment, owning very little furniture and there was a great deal of tension. In November 1947 they had the great luck to sublease an apartment on the Carmel.
When Lani was 8 years old Elisabeth wanted to resume her teaching career. She had to take a course in English in order to qualify for a teaching license. She never taught, because at the moment she passed the exam, Kurt's associate committed suicide and Kurt urgently needed help in his laboratory. She started a new career as a medical secretary. That was in 1958.
They reluctantly left Haifa in August 1960 to move to Petach Tikvah, where Kurt had been offered a position at Beilinson Hospital. They were able to find a house with a garden in a compound where many hospital employees lived.
In April 1961, Ada, the first daughter of Irene, and the first grandchild, was born there. Elisabeth gave private lessons in English, till 1964 when the small department for Electro Myography was opened and Elisabeth became it's technical secretary. She stayed there long after the official retirement age.
In 1983 when she was 74 they no longer prolonged her employment. As this was only a part time job, she was able to do lots of volunteer work. In 1966, after Kurt's death she started to volunteer work with VTS voluntary tourist service. For this work she was eventually honoured with one of the presidents prices for volunteers. After the 1973 war she drove families of wounded soldiers from Petach Tikvah to Haddassa hospital in Jerusalem on Shabbath, when there is no public transport in the country.
After that she drove handicapped youngsters to Beth Loewenstein, a rehabilitation hospital in Herzlyiah. Afterwards she became a driver for pre-school deaf children from Micha. The children had to be transported from widely scattered communities. This work lasted till 1995.
In January 1996 Elisabeth moved to a senior residence in Kfar Saba, as she could not manage the 48 steps to her apartment any more. At this residence she volunteers in the library and pursues many new hobbies, like drawing and carpentry. This is written while this amazing lady of 89 is visiting in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
[Lore Steinitz]