"Freddie from Holland"
On Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, Frederika Leston fell seven years short of her stated goal of living to be 103 years old. Born in Amsterdam, Holland on Jan. 26, 1917 the daughter of fabric merchant Jacques Polak and wife Lyn, "Freddy" had an idyllic childhood in the Dutch countryside which she fondly and frequently remembered.
Her younger years ended abruptly during World War II, with the loss of most of her family in the Holocaust, including her father, mother, younger sister Eva, and first husband Sal Kuyt. Freddy and her brother Jo spent these years in hiding, one step ahead of the Nazis, and miraculously survived using their wits and determination, and with the help of a few loyal friends. Freddy's video testimony was given to The Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation founded by Steven Spielberg in 1994. Her story also appears in print in "When They Came To Take My Father," a collection of narratives edited by Leora Kahn and Rachel Hager in 1996.
Freddy immigrated to the U.S. in 1947, arriving in New York City where she met her second husband Ernst Radt, a former judge in pre-war Germany and then Wall Street broker. Their only child, daughter Evelyn, was born in April of 1952. They took up residence in Cold Spring Harbor on the north shore of Long Island in the days when the area mostly consisted of farmland. Ernst died suddenly in 1957 of a heart attack on the morning commute to his office. Freddy eventually remarried and moved to Manhattan near Central Park, in the mid 60s. Husband Paul Leston, an international insurance broker, died in 1972. Eight years later, Freddy was widowed a fourth time upon the death of Stanley Rennert, an entrepreneur who started his own manufacturing business in NYC, after immigrating to the U.S. from Romania. Stanley shared Freddy's love of nature and the countryside around the Towanda area and visited here frequently. He died on Thanksgiving in 1980.
Freddy loved fresh air, sunlight, flowers, photography, painting, jazz, long walks and good food. She was proficient in four languages and loved traveling back to Europe to visit cousins in Holland and Switzerland whenever possible. Freddy spent many summers living in Eagles Mere after the birth of her two grandchildren and most recently resided at the Personal Care Home in Towanda.
Preceded in death by younger brother Jo in 1972, Freddy most loved spending time with her "little family" and is survived by daughter Evelyn and "favorite" son-in-law Pat Sherburne of Towanda; grandson Aaron and his wife Lauren Sherburne of Pequannock, N.J.; granddaughter Abby Stroud of Towanda; four beautiful great-grandchildren – Jocelyn, Jason, Matthew and Nicolas. Her extended family includes special friends Ruth Rennert (step-daughter), Hazel Harber, Collette Koster (sister-in-law), Jake Stroud, Gerardo Brown and fellow Holocaust survivors Ina and Jack Polak.
Frederika Eva Polak Leston bron: https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=116711130