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Episode 87 – “From Paris Crib to Brooklyn Bathtub: Terry Kaplan’s 2G Journey”

In this moving installment of Raised by Survivors, host Bernie Furshpan sits down with volunteer and fellow Brooklyn native Terry “Tzirel/Terèse” Kaplan. Born in post-war Paris to Polish Holocaust survivors and brought to New York by HIAS at age three, Terry recounts an odyssey that stretches from the forests near Lublin to Brownsville’s live-chicken markets—and ultimately to her father’s appearance on Schindler’s List.

What you’ll hear inside:

• Life on the run: How Nazi loudspeakers lured starving Jews from the woods to ghettos, and how Terry’s parents endured Budzyń, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, and Płaszów before liberation in Czechoslovakia.
• Schindler’s factory—number 10 on the list: Terry shares the document that saved her father’s life and the nightmare screams he carried home to Brooklyn.
• Brooklyn Yiddishkeit & bathtub carp: From kaparos chickens to three-day gefilte-fish marathons, Terry paints a vivid picture of 1950s immigrant life, complete with Yiddish zingers and lamb-chop school lunches.
• The classic 2G split: Why one sibling shields parents and embraces Jewish identity while another rejects it—and how Terry channels that tension into volunteer work and grand-parenting today.

With warmth, wit, and unflinching honesty, Terry and Bernie explore food, language, survivor silence, and the fierce love that second-generation families inherit. If you’ve ever wrestled with inherited trauma—or savored a Brooklyn bagel “with a shmear”—this conversation will stay with you long after the credits roll.