H eadlines
Holocaust Survivor Battles Into Her 90s
L OCA L
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
EVEN AT 96, Holocaust
survivor Cherie Goren doesn’t
like sitting still.

The pandemic’s ended her
regular bridge game for now
and an insurance company
decision cost her some mobility
last month, leaving her largely
confined to her Merion Station
condominium. Goren said she’s been paying
into a long-term care insur-
ance policy with Transamerica
for 40 years. With her health
starting to decline last year,
she filed a claim and, in July,
the company approved her for
five hours a day with an aide,
who helped her run errands
and other day-to-day activities.

“If I don’t walk, I’m fine,”
she said. “If I walk, I fall.”
But in February, the company
sent out a nurse to assess Goren
and determined she didn’t need
the help, daughter Ellen Goren
said, and stopped approving
payments. The case is under
appeal, marking yet another
chapter in a long and inter-
esting life.

Transamerica Public Affairs
Director Erin Yang responded to
a Jewish Exponent inquiry that,
“Due to customer confidentiality,
we are unable to provide infor-
mation to you, but we have been
in contact with the customer to
address their concern.”
Born March 16, 1925, in
the seaport town of Memel,
Lithuania, as Sarah Fleishman
and nicknamed Tutti (a cousin
changed her name to Cherie
upon arrival to the United
States in 1939), Goren described
a happy, prosperous child-
hood with her two sisters and
Name: The Grant
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Comment: Jewish Exponent
brother. Their father, Leo, sold
wholesale textiles, while her
mother, Judith ran her family’s
Schwartzen Adler Hotel.

“It was a good life — it was
a very good life,” she said. “We
had help. We had a beautiful
apartment. We had the only
car in the city.”
That started to change in 1937,
when her father returned from a
business trip to Czechoslovakia,
sensing growing anti-Semitism
and general unrest.

“He said, ‘War is coming’ and
‘We’re taking a trip,’” she recalled.

For the next two years, Goren
and her sister Frances lived with
their aunt in Riga, Latvia, while
her father liquidated his store
and began making preparations
to immigrate to the United
States. Most of the family’s
wealth went to grease palms to
enable their travel, Goren said.

When it came time to
Cherie Goren
Photo by Andy Gotlieb
From left: Frances (Fanny), Cherie
(Tutti) and Gisella (Gisa) in 1929
depart, the family avoided
Germany, moving through the
Scandinavian countries before
taking a ship to Great Britain.

From there, they took the Queen
Mary to the United States,
Courtesy of Cherie Goren
arriving in New York Harbor
and passing the Statue of Liberty
on April 20, 1939, which also
was Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday.

“The ship passed close to
the majestic lady holding her
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H eadlines
torch,” Goren wrote in her book
“A Time to Keep.” “New York
appeared in the background.

People around us were crying
openly, so were my parents.

I could not quite understand
why, but I knew that this was
the most auspicious moment
in our life.”
There they were met by her
aunt, Rachel Domont, who
enlisted the Pepsi-Cola Co.

in dealing with the red tape
associated with immigration.

The Domonts owned a bottling
company in Indianapolis and
bottled Pepsi for all of Indiana.

The story of Goren’s family’s
departure from Lithuania
is chronicled in the 2018
documentary “Leaving Memel
- Refugees from the Reich,”
directed and produced by
nephew Fred L. Finkelstein.

The family spent the next few
years in Indianapolis, eventually
moving to New York, although
Goren stayed behind to finish
high school. She enjoyed the
freedom of basically being on
her own and recalled seeing an
unknown “skinny young kid
standing by himself” backstage
at a Tommy Dorsey concert
and asking for his autograph.

The singer was happy to do so,
signing, “To Cherie, Sincerely
Yours, Frank Sinatra.”
“I didn’t graduate with my
class because I cut too many
classes,” she said. “I had to go
to summer school.”
It was in Indianapolis that
Goren met Rabbi Elias Charry,
who many Philadelphians
might remember for his
lengthy tenure leading the
Germantown Jewish Centre.

Because of Charry, Goren was
active at the center for decades.

“He was my mentor. I miss
him a lot,” she said. “He was a
big influence.”
At a wartime USO show, Goren
met an Army Air Corpsmen from
Philadelphia named Joe Goren
who specialized in “making false
teeth for all the generals,” she said.

They married and moved to the
area a few years later, settling in
Lafayette Hill.

From there, they lived the
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American dream, raising two
children in the suburbs and
staying involved with the
Jewish community.

Goren doesn’t think too
often these days of her wartime
experiences – she refers to her
book as a coming to America
tale, not a Holocaust story —
but did make a return trip to
Memel about 30 years ago.

She found little recognizable,
although her grandfather’s
tombstone was just one of six
saved from a cemetery there.

At the age of 50, Goren
entered the work force, taking
a part-time job at a National
Beauty Stores location. Although
she didn’t have retail experi-
ence, she eventually became
merchandise manager for the
eight-location chain and created
a store-brand cosmetics line
called Cherie Cosmetics.

Around the time she moved
to the Merion Station condo-
minium she still calls home,
she bought the insurance
policy now in dispute.

“Forty years and never
missed a payment and they
just pulled it,” she said.

Goren might want some
help, but doesn’t want anyone
to believe she’s helpless.

“All of a sudden, you become
a charity case,” she said. “The
first time they sent me Meals
on Wheels, I sent it back. ... The
longer I live, the less I know.”
Still, Ellen Goren isn’t
letting the insurance denial go
easily, noting that her mother
uses a walker and has been
hospitalized on three occasions
because of falls.

“I said, ‘You’re just waiting
for her to die, so you don’t have
to pay the claim,’” she said. “It’s
just a very draconian way to do
business.” Ellen Goren said she’s still
making quarterly payments
of about $500 to keep her
mother’s policy active.

“She’s gotten very dependent
on her provider,” Ellen Goren
said. “She’s sitting alone.” l
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