Gisela Kohn Dollinger, left, as a child with her older sister, Helene. (Photo courtesy Carole Vogel)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Shortly after Kristallnacht, when her family-owned dry-goods store was destroyed and Bernard was arrested, Dollinger went to the Gestapo in Vienna — putting herself at risk — and asked for her husband\u2019s release. She argued successfully that since he was not an Austrian citizen (he was Polish), he should not have been included in the roundup of men scheduled to be sent to Dachau or Buchenwald.<\/p>\n
Some family members have speculated that her persuasion included a bribe, but Dollinger never mentioned that when recounting the story, Vogel said.<\/p>\n
“She credited the release of her husband to the fact that someone had advised her to speak to a certain Gestapo officer who was known to be more open to reason and that she showed him a valid Polish passport belonging to Bernard,” Vogel explained, adding that “open to reason” might have meant bribes, because “with Gisa everything could be in the nuance.”<\/p>\n
Upon his release, Bernard was told that if he did not leave Austria within two weeks he would be returned to the concentration camp. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation, the couple managed to obtain two first-class tickets on a boat to Japanese-occupied China, one of the few places where Jews could easily obtain visas at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe described [the voyage to Shanghai] as a surreal vacation being on first class, especially after being treated so shabbily in Austria,\u201d Vogel said.<\/p>\n
In Shanghai, the Dollingers lived in the crowded and impoverished ghetto to which stateless refugees were restricted, and Gisela worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which was distributing clothing and other aid there.<\/p>\n
In December 1948, exactly 10 years after leaving Austria, the Dollingers departed China for the nascent State of Israel.<\/p>\n
After the hardships of the Shanghai ghetto and the typhus bout, Dollinger and her husband were leery of life in a new and embattled country, even though most of Dollinger\u2019s relatives were there, Vogel said. Since Bernard had sisters in the United States who urged them to come, the couple moved to New York in 1950.<\/p>\n
They soon settled in a rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment in the East Village, where she would live more than 60 years. He painted houses, she worked at an envelope factory. The couple frequently hosted friends for bridge games. When they received reparations money from Germany for a relative who had been killed in the Holocaust, they put the entire sum into a scholarship fund at an Israeli university. (Vogel was not sure which one.)<\/p>\n
Despite their relatively modest circumstances, Dollinger, whose father had sold men\u2019s and women\u2019s clothing in Austria, was a sharp dresser, Vogel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy touch she could tell a fabric and its quality,\u201d she said. \u201cShe was a size 6 all her life except near the end, and all her clothes were absolutely, completely fitted.<\/p>\n
“She was a very elegant lady, very concerned about the appearance she gave. She wasn\u2019t vain, but she had just been taught that when you go out, or even when you\u2019re at home, you get dressed and present your best foot forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
What was the secret to her extremely long life?<\/p>\n
Vogel said Dollinger participated in an academic study on longevity among Ashkenazi Jews, and that aside from being blessed with good genes, her great-great aunt thought \u201cmaybe her purpose was to bring together the far-flung relatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe served as the uniter of the family — she had nieces and nephews in Argentina, Switzerland, England, Israel and Austria,\u201d Vogel said. \u201cShe became the place where people connected and the purveyor of information. When she was too old to get out much, her currency became the stories people told her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dollinger and her husband had postponed having their own children for various reasons — the war economy in Austria, the Nazis, the difficult life in wartime Shanghai — and by the time they reached the United States, where raising a child was possible, Dollinger was already in her late 40s.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe had up until the end the most phenomenal memory — she knew if someone\u2019s baby was due, if someone was up for a new job, if someone was on vacation — she always had this list of things in her head,\u201d Vogel said. \u201cEveryone who called, she knew what was going on in their life. She really cared.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dollinger kept up not just with her family\u2019s news but with current events, making a point of voting in every election, Vogel said.<\/p>\n
In his 2008 victory speech, President-elect Obama referenced a 106-year-old voter who had been profiled on CNN. Upon reading about it in The New York Times, Dollinger, who was the same age, apparently said, \u201cThey should\u2019ve written about me, but I\u2019m not a publicity hound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although she died at Beth Israel on March 10, having checked in a few days before her death, Dollinger managed to remain in her home, with the help of caregivers, until the end.<\/p>\n
In her final 10 years, relatives suggested Dollinger consider moving to an assisted living facility. Vogel said “she was absolutely against it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t want to be around old people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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