Alicia Appleman-Jurman (May 9, 1930 – April 4, 2017), also known as Alicia Ada Appleman, was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

–

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

memoirist, born in Rosulna, Poland (present-day Rosilna,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

), who has written and spoken about her experiences of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

in her autobiography, ''Alicia: My Story''.

Early life

The sole female and the second-youngest child of Sigmund and Frieda Jurman in a family of five children, Alicia Jurman was raised from the age of five in

Buczacz Buchach ( uk, Бучач; pl, Buczacz; yi, בעטשאָטש, Betshotsh or (Bitshotsh); he, בוצ'אץ' ''Buch'ach''; german: Butschatsch; tr, Bucaş) is a city located on the Strypa River (a tributary of the Dniester) in Chortkiv Raion of Te ...

. Her parents and four brothers (Moshe, Bunio, Herzl and Zachary) were all murdered during the

. She escaped the Germans by being thrown through the window of a train taking members of her community to an extermination camp, hiding in bunkers, living in fields, barns, and pretending to be Polish or Ukrainian. After losing her entire family at a young age, Alicia continued to have a strong will to survive. After Germany's defeat, she joined the underground group

Bricha Bricha ( he, בריחה, translit. ''Briẖa'', "escape" or "flight"), also called the Bericha Movement, was the underground organized effort that helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post–World War II Europe to the British Mandate fo ...

, helping smuggle Jews out of Poland to Austria, then on to the Palestine Mandate, which would become Israel. In early 1947 she sailed aboard the ''Theodor Herzl'', which was stopped by the Britain's Royal Navy. The ship's crew and passengers were sent to

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and interned for eight months there. In December 1947, Jurman made it to the Palestine Mandate. She was part of the

Palyam Palyam ( he, פלי"ם, an abbreviation of ''Plugat HaYam'' (), lit. ''Sea Company'') was the sea force of the Palmach. History Palyam was set up in April 1945 as the Palmach's tenth company (Pluga Yud) which originated from the Palmach's Naval ...

, later serving in the “Chayl HaYam” naval forces that fought at

Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

. There she met Gabriel Appleman, a volunteer from the United States. They wed in 1950 and came to the United States two years later. They returned to Israel in 1969 and were there during the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

(1973), and returned to the U.S. in 1975. The couple had two sons, and a daughter.Profile of Alicia Appleman-Jurman
, annefrankwall.org; accessed September 8, 2014.

Death

On April 4, 2017, Appleman-Jurman went into hospice after a failed surgery to repair a leaking mitral valve. She was surrounded by family and friends as she passed on in the early morning of April 8, 2017.

''Alicia: My Story''

Her autobiography, ''Alicia: My Story'', was published in Toronto and New York by Bantam in 1988. A reviewer for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' said that the book "is so profoundly observed, and the life it records so remarkably lived, that no amount of prior immersion in the sad community of witnesses to the Holocaust can dull the reader to its heroine." She was described as a person of "ferocious bravery". According to

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

, the book is held in 1176 libraries. It has been translated into French (''Alicia: l'histoire de ma vie''); into German (''Alicia: Überleben, um Zeugnis zu geben''); into Danish (''Alicia: min historie''); into Swedish (''Alicia: min historia''), into Dutch (''Vergeten kan ik niet''), and into Spanish (''Alicia, la historia de mi vida'').

Other writing

* ''Alicia: My Story Continues: a Journey in Historical Photographs'', San Jose, CA: Desaware Publishing, 2013; / * ''Six Cherry Blossoms and other stories'', Desaware Publishing (2012); / (includes incidents that occurred both before and after the events in ''Alicia: My Story'')

Filmography

''Alicia Live: A Presentation by Alicia Appleman-Jurman'' (April 10, 2012).

Additional reading

University of San Francisco, Alicia Appleman-Jurman: Her Story and Beyond

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Appleman-Jurman, Alicia 1930 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American memoirists American women memoirists Jewish American writers Holocaust survivors Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe) Polish emigrants to the United States Israeli emigrants to the United States People from Buchach Writers from Ternopil Oblast Jewish women writers 21st-century American Jews 20th-century American women 21st-century American women writers