By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-13 23:26:07 | Updated at 2025-01-14 14:24:08
15 hours ago
A 100-year-old Holocaust survivor revealed how her family hid from the Nazis inside a convent — as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer honored the “living legend superwoman” on Long Island Monday.
Pina Frassineti Wax — who was presented with a flag flown in her honor over the US Capitol to mark her century birthday — said she went into hiding with her mother Bianca and brother Sergio, who sometimes had to dress as a nun so Nazi soldiers wouldn’t check to see if he was circumcised during random searches of their quarters.
During their time in hiding, Frassineti Wax nearly lost her leg to an infection, but was saved by her mother’s ineffable dedication to her children.
“Her leg was almost amputated,” her grandson and New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax told The Post on Monday as Schumer visited her at Merrick Senior Center. “Her mother walked 10 miles to an American army base and demanded penicillin. She got penicillin and kept her leg.”
Frassineti Wax’s family went into hiding as Italy’s then dictator, Benito Mussolini, joined with Germany and Japan during World War II. The family were “Italkims,” or Italian Jews, Gavin Wax said.
“That actually helped her survive because in other countries in Europe you would have a very Ashkenazi or Yiddish name, like Goldstein or Goldberg, which could identify you more easily,” her grandson said. “In Italy her last name was Frassineti, which was a name only an Italian may know as Jewish. The Germans didn’t know it was a Jewish name. It helped her survive.”
Although she survived the ordeal and eventually emigrated to the US, her grandfather, a rabbi, was killed in Auschwitz and many of her extended family members died in Dachau, Gavin Wax said.
Frassineti said in a statement read by her daughter that hate must be eradicated “wherever we see it.”
“I will always be appreciative of America that welcomed me with open arms when I escaped an evil world in Europe,” she said in the statement, read by her daughter Liza Wax. “Although the world today is very different from 70 years ago, hatred must not be tolerated on any level and we must remember the road to death camps and killing fields is built with hate and paved with indifference. We must always seek to eradicate hate from wherever we see it.”
Frassineti Wax wound up in the United States as a war bride with her husband, Mario Wax, who had fled Italy and joined the US Army to fight in North Africa. The couple settled in Manhattan and bounced around from there to Chicago before finding their roots in Long Island.
Meanwhile, Frassineti Wax sought to pursue higher education while dedicating herself to the community. She received her Doctorate of Letters from Sapienza University of Rome and Columbia University. She went on to teach Italian and Italian history at Lake Forest College outside of Chicago.
Her sprawling family tree now includes her three children, six grandchildren, and even three great-grandchildren.
Having survived war herself as a teenager, Frassineti Wax called for focus on all children entrapped by the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
“What’s happening is a complete disgrace. It’s a nightmare, what they did to these children, that they were taken out of their homes by Hamas.” Frassineti Wax told The Post in Italian, translated by her grandson Gavin Wax.
“They need to save the young people who didn’t do anything. The first priority should be getting the kids out of the war zone.”
Holocaust. Dennis A. Clark
he died in the 1990s. Dennis A. Clark
Schumer said the Long Island resident will also receive a special recognition on the Senate floor calling her a living legend.
“When we poll the younger generation they don’t even realize the Holocaust occurred, and our motto is never forget,” Schumer said. “The best way to remember is to have people who survived the holocaust testify to it and Ms Frassineti’s life has been just that.”
