Nancy Alspektor, born Oct. 8, 1922, passed away March 1, 2008.
Nadya Driter and Daniel Alspektor met in 1945 on the outskirts of the rubble that had been Warsaw, Poland while searching through the shards of their neighborhood for traces of the families they had lost. They found nothing remained; but they met each other that day for the first time. Both were stunning to look at and made a beautiful couple.
After 51 years of marriage, and enjoying their four children, eight grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild, Daniel Alspektor passed away on March 1, 1997, at 76.
Eleven years later to the day, his wife of 85 years passed away. Her name no longer Nadya but Nancy.
She now joins her beloved husband again in heaven.
Nancy is survived by three sons, Allen and wife Alice in Sacramento, Calif., Stanley and wife Meredith in Pennsylvania, Pa. and Arthur in Los Angeles; and one daughter, RoseAnn and husband Erwin Schalker on Whidbey Island.
Alspektor/Alspector cousins and other relatives have been found in Paris, France, Israel, Russia, New York and Canada.
Nancy committed her entire life to her family and friends and was always putting everyone ahead of herself. Anytime someone was in need, she would be there to help, to comfort and to show that someone cared. It’s common to hear her friends say “I loved that woman! She was always there for me.”
Nancy and Danny were lifelong active members of charities helping to raise funds for the City of Hope and other organizations. Nancy was a terrific business woman and sales lady. She and Danny were exquisite ballroom dancers too. They spent many good years socializing with friends and traveling around the world.
Sadly, Nancy never knew her immediate family as a child since she was orphaned at a young age in Warsaw and lost any relatives during the war.
Both Nancy and Danny were interviewed for The New York Times in 1990 because access to new records were discovered
20 years ago in archives in Moscow. This enabled the American Red Cross to provide new information on the lives or deaths of 400,000 people interned in Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Dachau and Gross Rosen:
“It’s like looking for a pebble in the ocean,” Mrs. Alspektor said. “We’re not sure we will succeed in finding anyone. But even just talking about it brings back some kind of memories, which is important, instead of hiding from it all our lives. We don’t know how long we have to go on. It’s better to get it out of the system.”
Mr. Alspektor said: “It’s like I didn’t close that chapter. I have no concrete evidence that they’re gone or what. At least if I have something that says they succumbed in a concentration camp, it’s the end of the book.”
The Times article went on:
Eighteen years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Alspektor, who were retired at the time and lived in Los Angeles, went to their local chapter of the Red Cross, got request forms prepared by the Baltimore-based Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center of the Red Cross and filled in the names, ages and professions of her sister, brother-in-law and two nieces and his three sisters, brother and mother and father. The surviving children do not know if they ever got a response. Now that both parents are gone, it will be the children who have to research the past to finally close that chapter of what happened to their relatives.
Memorial services were held March 9 at the Sholom Chapels and Mortuary in Sylmar, Calif. For information, contact the family at 360-929-6871.
Instead of flowers, the family requests donations to be made to the City of Hope or the Shoah Foundation in memory of Nancy and Daniel Alspektor.
