Tamar Hendel was born Rut Hendel on April 26, 1935 in Zagreb, Yugoslavia. Her father, Isac (Eisig), owned a successful dry goods store. Her mother, Hana Surah Weissman, helped run the store. While the family was not Orthodox, they kept a kosher diet and spent holidays with their family in the suburbs. Tamar’s brother, David, who was seven years her senior, attended Hebrew school. As a child, Tamar was taken to children’s shows by her mother and to the park where she played with her cousin, Giselle.
In April 1941, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia. Zagreb became the capital of a German satellite state called the Independent State of Croatia, which was under the control of the fascist Ustaša regime. The new Croatian government enacted antisemitic regulations, including forcing Jews to wear a yellow badge with a “Ž” on it for Židow, the Croatian word for Jew. This prompted the Hendel family to search for a means of escaping Croatia. That summer, Isac was able to sell his dry goods store to one of his employees at a considerable loss in order to pay a member of the Ustaše to smuggle Tamar and Hana out of Croatia via train. They settled in Fiume, Italy (today Rijeka, Croatia), a port city near the pre war Italian-Yugoslav border. The sale of the family business also paid for the departure of Isac and David via fisherman’s boat to the Italian-Yugoslav border. After several failed attempts to flee, Isac and David were finally able to join Hana and Tamar.
When the family reunited, they settled into a ground floor apartment in Italian-occupied Ljubljana (today Slovenia) for a short time. Tamar and her family were joined by members of their extended family, also from Croatia, who had also fled the Nazis and their collaborators. In early December 1941, when Isac heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Tamar overheard him say “Good, the Americans will now enter the war.” Later that month, the extended family made their way to Rovigo, Italy. Fascist Italy was an ally of Nazi Germany and had passed its own antisemitic laws in 1938 but, compared to other parts of Europe, it was relatively safe. The Hendel family took up residence in a small apartment next to the synagogue which was arranged by the local police in conjunction with a member of the Jewish community. The family was also issued food ration cards and given a monthly stipend by the Italian government.
Although conditions were difficult, Tamar maintained some semblance of a normal childhood. She spent her time playing with her cousins and other children on the street, learning Italian and how to ride a bicycle. Since Jews could not attend schools alongside non-Jewish Italians, Tamar’s parents taught her and her cousins how to read and write, and they hired a teacher for arithmetic. Isac also taught the children how to read Hebrew prayers.
Life changed for the Hendels again in the fall of 1943. On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies. The Germans responded by quickly occupying northern and central Italy. The extended family fled south to Rome, seeking to hide in the anonymity of a large city. After a crowded and harrowing journey by train,Tamar and her family arrived in Rome where the extended family split up. For a time, they were hidden under the false last name Endelli and in various convents and monasteries. After months of bombings and air raids, the Hendel family was liberated by American troops in June 1944. Soon after liberation, Jewish relief organizations arrived in Rome and informed the survivors of opportunities to travel to the United States.
With the help of these organizations, the Hendels and their cousins arrived at the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York in August 1944. There, Tamar attended school for the first time, learned to read, write, and speak English, and participated in social activities like the Girl Scouts. In 1946, the family moved to New York City. The family members who remained in Croatia were murdered in the Holocaust. Those who were killed included her maternal grandfather, Mordechai Weissman, and her uncle, Aron Kremer. Mordechai and Aron were part of a group of 100 Jews murdered in a reprisal action after an act of sabotage by the Partisans. Tamar’s paternal uncle, Wolf Hendel, and his wife, Golda, were murdered in Auschwitz.
Tamar became a public school teacher in New York and later in Maryland before becoming an art therapist. She started an art center called “Create Arts Center” located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Tamar is currently an art teacher at her retirement residence, and she is a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.